The countries that have mediated the negotiations between Israel and Hamas are pushing to restart those conversations to end the war in Gaza permanently.
The United States, Qatar, and Egypt have acted as mediators throughout the war, which began in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack. While they have been able to get both sides to agree to two short-term ceasefires and hostage swaps, there has been limited progress toward a long-term solution.
“MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA,” President Donald Trump said on social media on Sunday. “GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!”
Hamas took about 250 hostages during the Oct. 7 attack, and is still holding roughly 50 of them, about 20 of whom are believed to be still alive.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that “many opportunities have opened up” to make a deal to save the remaining 50 hostages, following Israel’s 12-day war against Iran.
“Of course, we will also need to solve the Gaza issue, defeat Hamas, but I believe we will accomplish both missions,” he added.
Netanyahu has long said the country’s priority is the lasting defeat of Hamas, and has faced criticism from the families of many of the hostages for not prioritizing securing their release.
Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer is in Washington, D.C. this week to meet with senior U.S. administration officials, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. Israeli media reported that Netanyahu would head to the nation’s capital next week.
Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed al Ansari acknowledged on Monday that there are currently “no talks regarding a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip,” but he added, “communications are underway to reach a formula to return to negotiations.”
The mediating trio brokered the most recent eight-week phased ceasefire agreement that went into effect in January and collapsed in March.
The deal had been designated to pause the war, allowing for desperately needed humanitarian aid to get into the Gaza Strip unimpeded in exchange for the release of some of the hostages, but was also meant to provide the mediators enough time to come up with a longer-term solution for after the war ends that both sides could agree on. They could not come to a deal, and Israel resumed military operations.
Despite international calls for a ceasefire, the two sides have remained unable to finalize a deal.
The Trump administration hopes to expand the president’s Abraham Accords, or a series of Israeli normalization agreements with Arab countries in the region. Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco normalized relations with Israel during Trump’s first administration, and he has talked publicly about expanding the Abraham Accords during his second term.
Administration officials have signaled that other countries could be interested in normalizing ties with Israel, but the war in Gaza has taken a toll on those discussions, given the scale of the death and destruction in Gaza and global concern for Palestinian civilians.
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Israel’s military is believed to have killed more than 50,000 people in Gaza, a total that includes combatants and civilians. It has also destroyed much of the infrastructure in the enclave, which has prompted U.S. officials to call the strip “uninhabitable.”
Egyptian Foreign Affairs Minister Dr. Badr Abdel Aati spoke with U.S. special presidential envoy Steve Witkoff on Monday. The diplomat “stressed the need to propose a political horizon for the Palestinian issue that fulfills the aspirations and hopes of the Palestinian people for the establishment of an independent state,” according to a readout of the call.