Egypt says Gaza cease-fire talks fail to achieve a breakthrough

CAIRO — Three days of negotiations with Hamas terrorists over a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages failed to achieve a breakthrough on Tuesday, Egyptian officials said, less than a week before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent weeks trying to broker an agreement in which Hamas would release up to 40 hostages in return for a six-week cease-fire, the release of some Palestinian prisoners and a major influx of aid to Gaza.

Two Egyptian officials said that the latest round of discussions ended on Tuesday. They said Hamas presented a proposal that mediators would discuss with Israel in the coming days. One of the officials said that mediators would meet Wednesday with the Hamas delegation, which didn’t leave Cairo.

Hamas has refused to release all of the estimated 100 hostages it holds, and the remains of around 30 more, unless Israel ends its offensive, withdraws from Gaza and releases a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including senior terrorists serving life sentences.

U.S. officials have said that they are skeptical that Hamas actually wants a deal, because the terrorist group has balked at a number of what the U.S. and others believe are legitimate requests, including giving the names of hostages to be released.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly rejected Hamas’ demands and repeatedly vowed to continue the war until Hamas is dismantled and all the hostages are returned. Israel didn’t send a delegation to the latest round of talks.

Israel was still waiting for Hamas to hand over a list of hostages who are alive as well as the hostage-to-prisoner ratio it seeks in any release deal, an Israeli official said. It wasn’t clear if that information was included in the latest proposal.

The Israeli and Egyptian officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to brief the media on the negotiations.

When asked whether Hamas has a list of the surviving hostages, Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said that the matter wasn’t relevant to the talks and accused Israel of using it as an excuse to avoid engaging in the negotiations.

Mediators had hoped to broker an agreement before Ramadan, the month of dawn-to-dusk fasting that often sees heightened Israeli-Palestinian tensions linked to access to a major holy site in Jerusalem. Ramadan is expected to begin around March 10, depending on the sighting of the moon.

“The negotiations are sensitive. I can’t say there is optimism or pessimism, but we haven’t yet reached a point at which we can achieve a cease-fire,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said Monday.

The war was ignited when Hamas terrorists attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages. More than 100 of them were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November.

The attack sparked an Israeli retaliatory invasion of Gaza that the Hamas-run Health Ministry says has killed 30,631 Palestinians. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its figures.