CIA director and Mossad head to hold talks with Egyptian intelligence in Qatar to try to secure hostage deal, hours after US calls for immediate ceasefire in Gaza
The head of Israel’s national intelligence agency Mossad will travel to Qatar on Friday for talks with the CIA chief and other mediators as part of the latest effort to release hostages from Hamas captivity.
Details were announced by the Israeli prime minister’s office on Thursday, shortly after the US introduced a UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of all hostages.
Israeli spy chief David Barnea will meet with the CIA’s Bill Burns – President Joe Biden’s international troubleshooter – as well as Qatar’s prime minister and Egypt’s intelligence minister.
It is believed that around 130 hostages are still being held by Hamas terrorists in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
Hopes for an agreement have risen and fallen almost weekly as Israel continues its offensive.
Israelis blow a shofar, a Jewish musical horn usually made from a ram’s horn, during a mass prayer calling for the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since the October 7 attacks
Israeli spy chief David Barnea (left), the head of the Mossad, will meet in Qatar on Friday with the CIA’s Bill Burns – President Joe Biden’s top international troubleshooter.
The standoff centers on Hamas’s insistence that it only release hostages as part of a deal that would end the war. Israel says it will only take a temporary pause.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Arab broadcaster Al Hadath in Cairo: “I think the differences are narrowing and I think an agreement is very possible.”
Israel launched its offensive after Hamas gunmen killed about 12,000 Israelis on October 7.
Since then, nearly 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza health authorities.
International humanitarian organizations now say the blockade and war have brought the enclave to the brink of famine.
Blinken confirmed that the US had proposed a UN resolution.
“We actually have a resolution that we have now submitted to the United Nations Security Council calling for an immediate ceasefire over the release of hostages, and we very much hope that countries will support that. “I think that would be a powerful message, a powerful signal,” he said.
The final text of the resolution, obtained by NBC News, contains stronger language than previous drafts. It outlines ‘the need for an immediate and lasting ceasefire to protect civilians on all sides,’ to enable the delivery of humanitarian assistance ‘and to that end unequivocally supports ongoing international diplomatic efforts to achieve a to secure such a ceasefire in connection with the release of all remaining civilians. hostages.’
Smoke rises in the background after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, March 21, 2024. More than 31,500 Palestinians and more than 1,300 Israelis were killed, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health and the Israeli army.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Cairo, Egypt, for ceasefire talks on Gaza
U.S. deputy ambassador to the U.N. Robert Wood told reporters that officials wanted a vote on the resolution before the end of the week.
“We think it is a good text,” he said, according to the Associated Press.
‘Everyone should be able to get behind it.’
Last week, Hamas presented a ceasefire proposal in Gaza to mediators and the US that would have allowed the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for the freedom of Palestinian prisoners, 100 of whom are serving life sentences.
The group said the first release of Israelis would include women, children, elderly and sick hostages in exchange for the release of 700 to 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, according to the proposal. The release of Israeli ‘female recruits’ is included.
But that was linked to a permanent ceasefire, which Israel rejected.