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Hamas has said it will continue negotiations to release Israeli hostages and halt its war with Israel, even as its representatives left talks in Cairo without a breakthrough, underscoring the difficulty of reaching a deal.
Officials from Hamas, Egypt and Qatar have been holding talks in the Egyptian capital this week, but hopes of reaching an agreement before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, due to start on Sunday or Monday, are fading.
In a brief statement, Hamas said its delegation had left Cairo on Thursday to consult with the Gaza-based militant group’s leadership, but negotiations were continuing “to stop the aggression, return the displaced and bring aid to our Palestinian people”.
An Israeli government spokesman declined to comment.
Negotiators have been pushing Hamas to accept a phased deal, the first part of which would entail the group releasing some of the roughly 130 hostages that it still holds in Gaza.
In exchange, Israel would release some Palestinian prisoners and agree to an initial 45-day truce, during which negotiators would try and thrash out the terms for an extended ceasefire and permanent end to the war.
However, talks have been deadlocked for weeks, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejecting Hamas’s demand that any arrangement end with a permanent ceasefire, according to a person briefed on the talks.
Israel took part in earlier negotiations but did not attend this week’s talks in Cairo, accusing Hamas of hindering the talks by refusing to provide a list of which of the 130 hostages were still alive.
Osama Hamdan, a Hamas official, on Tuesday denied that Hamas had refused to provide a list of names, and accused Israel of undermining the talks by not attending.
Despite the difficulties, the US, which along with Qatar and Egypt has played an important role in mediating the negotiations, said on Wednesday that a deal could still be done.
“We continue to believe that the obstacles are not insurmountable and that a deal can be reached,” Matthew Miller, state department spokesman, said in a press briefing. “A deal is in the interest of Israel [and] the Palestinian people . . . So we’re going to continue to push for one.”
Hamas took about 250 hostages and killed about 1,200 people during its attack on October 7 which triggered the war, according to Israeli officials. It released about 110 hostages during a brief truce in November. Israeli officials assess that at least 31 of the hostages still in Gaza are dead.
In response to Hamas’s attack, Israel has launched a ferocious assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 30,000 people and displaced 1.7mn of the Palestinian territory’s 2.3mn inhabitants, according to local health officials, as well as reduced much of the territory to rubble.
Aid groups have warned that the offensive has caused a humanitarian catastrophe, with Gaza’s health system in a state of collapse and its population facing acute food insecurity. The charity Save The Children said last week that Gaza was “witnessing a mass killing of children in slow motion because there is no food left”.
International pressure for a ceasefire has grown as the destruction has mounted. However, Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted that Israel will not stop its offensive until Hamas has been destroyed, and dismissed the group’s demands during negotiations as “delusional”.