Israel said to boycott Cairo ceasefire talks over hostage list

Israel boycotted Gaza ceasefire talks in Cairo on Sunday after Hamas rejected its demand for a complete list naming hostages that are still alive, according to reports.

A Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo for the talks, billed as a possible final hurdle before an agreement that would halt the fighting for six weeks and allow for the release of additional hostages out of the remaining 134 captives in Gaza. 

By the evening there was no sign of a delegation from Israel, which had said that it would only send officials to the talks if it received a list of the captives to be freed and a second list of security prisoners and terrorists held in its jails, which Hamas would want to see freed in exchange.

A US official who had briefed reporters on Saturday night said that the agreement was a very complex one.

Ynet reported that Mossad chief David Barnea received a call from Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed al-Thani on Saturday night, informing him that Hamas had not ceded to Israel’s request.

”There is no Israeli delegation in Cairo," according to Ynet, the online version of Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. It quoted unidentified Israeli officials as stating that "Hamas refuses to provide clear answers and therefore there is no reason to dispatch the Israeli delegation."

Deal not close to being finalized

Washington has insisted the ceasefire deal is close and should be in place in time to halt fighting by the start of Ramadan on March 10, a week away. But the warring sides have given little sign in public of backing away from previous demands.

After the Hamas delegation arrived, a Palestinian official told Reuters the deal was "not yet there." There was no official comment from Israel.

In past negotiations, Hamas has sought to avoid discussing the well-being of individual hostages until after terms for their release are set.

A US official told reporters on Saturday: "The path to a ceasefire right now literally at this hour is straightforward. And there's a deal on the table. There's a framework deal."

Israel had agreed to the framework and it was now up to Hamas to respond, the US official said.

The official spoke of a phased deal, in which during the first six weeks, women and those who are elderly, vulnerable, and ill would be freed.

Other issues on the table have included the return home of Palestinians in Gaza who fled from their homes in the north to the south of the enclave to avoid IDF bombings.

Aid would be ramped up for Gazans and crossings expanded under the deal as the United Nations has warned that residents of the enclave are in danger of starvation for lack of food.

Fighting would cease in time to head off a massive planned Israeli military operation against Hamas battalions in Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's 2.3 million people have sought refuge.

But the proposal appears to stop short of fulfilling the main Hamas demand for a permanent end to the war, while also leaving unresolved the fate of more than half of the more than 100 remaining hostages - including Israeli men not covered by terms to free women, children, the elderly and wounded.

Egyptian mediators have suggested those issues could be set aside for now, with assurances to resolve them in later stages. A Hamas source told Reuters the militants were still holding out for a "package deal.”

Both Qatar and Egypt have been mediating the deal with the help of the United States. The Biden administration hopes that the pause to the war would allow for work to advance on regional deals, such as one between Israel and Saudi Arabia. 

It is also believed that a pause in the war would pave the way for a diplomatic solution to the cross-border violence between Hezbollah and the IDF on Israel’s northern border.

US envoy Amos Hochstein will visit Beirut on Monday to continue diplomatic efforts aimed at de-escalating the conflict with Hezbollah, a White House official said on Sunday.

The Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah and Israel have been locked in hostilities for months in parallel to the Gaza war. It has marked the worst conflict between the heavily armed adversaries since a 2006 war, fueling fears of an even bigger confrontation.

Lebanon deputy parliament speaker Elias Bou Saab, one of the officials due to meet Hochstein, told Reuters he believed the timing of his visit pointed to progress in efforts to secure a Gaza truce "within the next few hours or days."

"If this happens, I believe that Hochstein's visit this time will be of great importance to follow up on the truce on our southern borders and to discuss what is needed for stability and ending the possibility of the expansion of the war with Lebanon," he said.

The White House official did not offer further details about the visit.

Hezbollah has publicly indicated that it would halt its attacks on Israel from Lebanon when the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip stops, but that it was also ready to keep on fighting if Israel continued hostilities.

Lebanon's caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati told Reuters on Thursday that a halt to fighting in the Gaza Strip as early as this week would trigger indirect talks to end hostilities along Lebanon's southern border with Israel.

Bou Saab said Hochstein had "serious ideas that may provide the beginning of a sustainable solution, stability, and banishing the specter of war that will not be in anyone’s interest."

Hochstein, who visited Beirut in January, previously brokered a rare diplomatic deal between Lebanon and Israel in 2022 to delineate their maritime border.

The Gaza war began when Hamas stormed Israel on Oct. 7, in an attack that killed 1,200 people and resulted in another 253 being abducted, according to Israeli tallies.

Hamas has asserted that 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip as the result of the IDF’s military campaign sparked by the October 7 attack. Israel has said that at least 11,000 of the Gaza fatalities are combatants.