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Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has announced that he has instructed a delegation to depart for Egypt for talks on continuing the ceasefire in the war with Hamas in Gaza, two days before the first stage of the fragile agreement expires.
The Israeli team is scheduled to leave Cairo, Egypt’s capital, late on Thursday, a statement from the prime minister’s office said. The announcement was made a day after Hamas handed over the bodies of four Israeli hostages, the last due to be released under the terms of the six-week first phase of the deal agreed in January.
Six hundred Palestinian prisoners and detainees who were supposed to be released over the weekend were freed overnight on Wednesday, 46 of them women and children. Some had had limbs amputated while in Israeli custody, and many were emaciated.
Stage one of the ceasefire is due to end on 2 March. Negotiations on how to implement the second stage – which would lead to a permanent end to the war – were supposed to begin weeks ago, but have been repeatedly postponed as the fragile truce has lurched from crisis to crisis.
Both sides have accused the other of repeated violations of the agreement, which paused 15 months of fighting, allowing for a massive increase in aid supplies and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from all positions other than border areas of the Gaza Strip. More than 48,000 people in Gaza have been killed in the conflict, which has reduced the territory to ruins and created a dire humanitarian crisis. About 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage in the Hamas attack that prompted the war.
Israel wants an extension to phase one of the deal in the renewed talks, government officials told Israeli media on Thursday. It is unclear what will happen if stage one expires on Sunday without an agreement on prolonging the first stage, whether the weekly batches of hostage swaps of stage one will continue, or for how long any extension will last.
Opinion polls show that most Israelis are in favour of continuing the ceasefire in order to free the remaining 59 hostages, at least 39 of whom are believed to be dead. However, Netanyahu is loath to commit to the second stage of the truce because of pressure from most of his rightwing government to fulfil the war’s stated objective of “total victory” over Hamas. An extremist coalition partner has threatened to quit and collapse the government if Israel does not return to fighting, which would make the Israeli prime minister more vulnerable to corruption charges.
In a statement on Thursday, Hamas said it was ready to begin talks on the second phase, and that the only way remaining hostages in Gaza would be freed was through “commitment to the ceasefire”.
The Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar, told reporters that the delegation would travel to Egypt to see whether there was common ground to negotiate an extension. “We said we are ready to make the framework longer in return to release more hostages. If it is possible, we’ll do that,” he said.
The Associated Press reported on Thursday that Israeli officials had confirmed the country would not withdraw its forces from the Gaza-Egypt border zone, as per the ceasefire agreement, which could once again plunge the truce’s future into jeopardy.
Hamas, responding to comments from Israel’s energy minister, Eli Cohen, in which he demanded the Israeli military remains on Gaza’s southern border, said that any Israeli attempt to maintain a buffer zone in the corridor would be a “blatant violation” of the ceasefire agreement.
In stage two of the deal, of uncertain duration, Israel is supposed to completely withdraw its forces from Gaza, in effect ending the war, and talks on future governance of the strip should begin. Reconstruction is due to begin in stage three, but there are huge differences on both sides about Gaza’s future.
Hamas has said it is willing to give up control of the Gaza Strip to other Palestinians, but its leadership refuses to go into exile. Israel maintains that it will not allow Hamas or the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority to administer the territory when the war ends.
Also on Thursday, a car-ramming in northern Israel injured 14 people, one critically, in an attack police said had been carried out by a 53-year-old Palestinian from Jenin in the occupied West Bank. The suspect was shot dead at the scene.
Overnight, dozens of Palestinians were arrested by Israeli troops as part of an extended military operation across the West Bank that began two days after the truce in Gaza went into effect.
