The leader of Hamas visited Egypt on Wednesday as hopes grew that Israel and the Palestinian militant group may be inching toward another truce and hostage release deal in the Gaza war.
The Qatar-based Hamas chief, Ismail Haniyeh, arrived in Cairo for discussions on the “aggression in the Gaza Strip and other matters,” the group said in a statement.
He was due to meet Egypt’s spy chief for talks on “stopping the aggression and the war to prepare an agreement for the release of prisoners,” a source close to the group told AFP.
Haniyeh – who earlier met Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian in Qatar – was heading a “high-level delegation” to Egypt, a frequent mediator between Israel and Palestinians, the source said.
A source close to the Islamic Jihad group, which fights alongside Hamas in Gaza, told AFP the group’s leader Ziad Nakhaleh is also expected in Cairo early next week for talks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had told hostage families late Tuesday that he had twice sent his spy chief to Europe in an effort to “free our hostages.”
“It’s our duty, I’m responsible for the release of all the hostages,” the premier told the relatives of some of the 129 captives still believed to be held in Gaza.
“Saving them is a supreme task.”
“I have just sent the head of Mossad to Europe twice to promote a process to free our hostages. I will spare no effort on the subject, and our duty is to bring them all back.”
US news site Axios reported Monday that Mossad chief David Barnea had met CIA director Bill Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Europe.
Qatar, backed by Egypt and the United States, helped broker a week-long truce and hostage-prisoner swap in November in which 80 Israeli hostages were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
Axios also reported Tuesday that Israel had offered to pause the fighting in Gaza for at least one week in exchange for more than three dozen hostages held by Hamas.
The war began when Hamas militants burst out of Gaza on October 7, killing around 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel began a campaign of bombardment, and then a ground invasion, that Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says has killed 19,667 people, mostly women and children.
