Mediator Qatar has handed Israel and Hamas a “remaining” draft of a ceasefire and hostage launch settlement designed to finish the battle in Gaza, an official briefed on the negotiations advised Reuters on Monday (Jan 13).
A breakthrough was reached in Doha after midnight following talks between Israel’s spy chiefs, President-elect Trump’s Center East envoy and Qatar’s prime minister, the official mentioned.
United States President Joe Biden spoke on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the White Home mentioned. US officers are racing to achieve a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal earlier than Biden leaves workplace on Jan 20.
Biden and Netanyahu mentioned efforts underway to achieve a deal to halt the combating within the Palestinian enclave and free the remaining hostages there, the White Home mentioned in an announcement after the 2 leaders spoke by phone.
Biden “confused the immediate need for a ceasefire in Gaza and return of the hostages with a surge in humanitarian assist enabled by a stoppage within the combating underneath the deal”, it mentioned.
Israel launched its assault in Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed throughout its borders in October 2023, killing 1,200 individuals and taking greater than 250 hostages, based on Israeli tallies.
Since then, greater than 46,000 individuals have been killed in Gaza, based on Palestinian well being officers, with a lot of the enclave laid to waste and gripped by a humanitarian disaster, and most of its inhabitants displaced.