Israel announced on Friday that it would send a delegation to Doha, Qatar’s capital, next week to discuss a Gaza cease-fire and hostage release agreement.
“There are still gaps between the parties,” Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s spokesman stated after a meeting of the Mossad and Qataris mediators.
David Barnea led the group from Israel’s Mossad spy agency during the 1st round of discussions with mediators in Doha.
“There are still differences between the parties,” the spokesman said in a statement.
There has been no peace in Gaza’s nine-month war since a one-week halt in November, when 80 Israeli hostages were released in exchange for 240 Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons.
A senior US official stated that Israel and Hamas have a “pretty significant opening” to negotiate an accord.
The Gaza conflict, which has stoked worries of a bigger conflagration encompassing Lebanon, began with Hamas’s October 7 strike on southern Israel.
In response, Israel launched a military attack in Gaza, killing at least 38,011 people, the majority of them civilians, according to the Gaza’s health ministry.