Palestinians search for survivors in the rubble of a building in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City, in the central Gaza Strip that was targeted in an Israeli strike on July 6, 2025. (Credit: Bashar Taleb/AFP)
Israel will send a delegation to Qatar on Sunday for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and cease-fire deal, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said the changes requested by Hamas to a cease-fire proposal were unacceptable.
Hamas said on Friday it had responded to a U.S.-backed Gaza cease-fire proposal in a "positive spirit," a few days after U.S. President Donald Trump said Israel had agreed "to the necessary conditions to finalize" a 60-day truce.
But in a sign of the potential challenges still facing the two sides, a Palestinian official from a militant group allied with Hamas said concerns remained over humanitarian aid, passage through the Rafah crossing in southern Israel to Egypt and clarity over a timetable for Israeli troop withdrawals.
"The changes that Hamas seeks to make to the Qatari proposal were conveyed to us last night and are not acceptable to Israel," Netanyahu's office said in a statement late on Saturday.
The prime minister's office added that the delegation will still fly to Qatar for talks over a possible deal to "continue the efforts to secure the return of our hostages based on the Qatari proposal that Israel agreed to."
Netanyahu, who is due to meet Trump in Washington on Monday, has repeatedly said Hamas must be disarmed, a position the militant group, which is thought to be holding 20 living hostages, has so far refused to discuss.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old
Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered by the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, operation against southern Israel, a chaotic surprise-attack that resulted in the deaths of around 1,200 people. Palestinians militants took 251 hostages back to Gaza with the intention of exchanging them for thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli detention.
Gaza's health ministry says Israel's retaliatory military
assault on the enclave has killed over 57,000 Palestinians. It
has also caused a hunger crisis, displaced Gaza's entire
population internally and prompted accusations of genocide and
war crimes.
Qatar on Sunday for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and
cease-fire deal, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
office said the changes requested by Hamas to a cease-fire
proposal were unacceptable.
Hamas said on Friday it had responded to a
U.S.-backed Gaza cease-fire proposal in a "positive spirit," a
few days after U.S. President Donald Trump said Israel had
agreed "to the necessary conditions to finalize" a 60-day truce.
But in a sign of the potential challenges still facing the
two sides, a Palestinian official from a militant group allied
with Hamas said concerns remained over humanitarian aid, passage
through the Rafah crossing in southern Israel to Egypt and
clarity over a timetable for Israeli troop withdrawals.
"The changes that...