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The top Middle East mediator for the United States is in Qatar after a stop in Egypt as discussions heat up over the release of Hamas-held hostages, though U.S. officials emphasize that so far there is little progress to report.
The trip by Brett McGurk, the top National Security Council official on the Middle East, comes amid renewed speculation over a possible breakthrough in hostage negotiations and a pause in the fighting, which has been especially fierce in the past days as Israeli forces encircle the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, where top Hamas commanders are believed to be located.
Humanitarian organizations have reported that thousands of civilians are trapped in the city, especially in the hospitals.
“Brett McGurk is in Doha today having discussions with our Qatari counterparts about the possibility of another hostage deal,” NSC spokesman John Kirby told reporters Wednesday. “We certainly want to see another humanitarian pause put in place. … How close we are to that, what parameters are going to look like … that’s all part of the discussions right now.”
On Tuesday, Kirby cautioned that the conversations were still at an early stage.
“I wouldn’t even classify them as ‘negotiations’ quite at this point,” he said, “but ‘ongoing discussions with counterparts’ about what’s in the realm of the possible here.”
Israeli hostage families have ‘nothing left to lose’ in push for new deal
McGurk will also discuss humanitarian assistance and assess the Israel Defense Forces’ operations and the protection of civilian life, Kirby said.
Israel has offered a two-month pause in the fighting in exchange for a phased release of the remaining hostages, according to an Israeli familiar with the talks who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue. The deal was first reported by news website Axios.
“There’s a long way to go before reaching any agreements,” said a text between Israeli officials that was shown to The Washington Post. “Israel is offering various terms for the return of the hostages, with a pause in fighting seen as a given … but in no way will Israel give up on destroying Hamas, the return of the hostages.”
The phases of the hostage release would begin with the remaining civilian women and children, followed by civilian men, then Israeli military women and military men, and then the remaining dead bodies. There are more than 100 living hostages believed to still be held in Gaza.
Those phases were first discussed in late November, when a week-long pause in the fighting led to the release of more than 100 women, children and foreign hostages. The U.S. expectation at the time was that the pause would be continued through the phased release of all the hostages seized by Hamas on Oct. 7, originally believed to number more than 240.
Kirby said that conversations surrounding another potential hostage deal “are very sober and serious,” adding that “hopefully they will bear fruit.”
What they missed: Freed Israeli hostages return to tragedy and joys
While Israel has not commented publicly on the reports, on Wednesday the hard-right members of the cabinet — a key support base to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition — expressed misgivings over talk of a deal.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for an immediate emergency cabinet meeting. “Stopping the war at such sensitive timing could endanger the entire operation and bring about huge costs in the Gaza Strip and other fronts. Such a deal raises several dangerous questions. At this point, we cannot support stopping the war for a long time.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, meanwhile, tweeted that while he supports bringing home the hostages, he opposed a “bad deal.”
In the past, Hamas has said it would not release any more hostages if its conditions for an end to hostilities were not met. Israel has said there will be no withdrawal or permanent end to the fighting until Hamas’s leadership and military infrastructure are destroyed.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman of Qatar, which has been a key mediator between Israel and Hamas, said it had “presented ideas to both sides; we are getting a constant stream of replies from both sides, and that in its own right is a cause for optimism.”
Majed Al-Ansari, the spokesman, added that some recent public statements had been “harmful” to the process.
“When one side says they don’t accept the two-state solution, that they would not stop this war eventually, talking about the displacement of the Palestinians, that obviously leads to a harder mediation process,” he said. Netanyahu has repeatedly trumpeted his rejection of a future Palestinian state.
Relatives of hostages held by Hamas disrupted the Israeli parliament’s finance committee on Jan. 22 in Jerusalem. (Video: Reuters)
Israel is under increasing pressure from hostage families to make a deal to bring the captives home. A large majority of countries in the world have called for a humanitarian cease-fire — rather than a temporary pause — and demanded that Israel facilitate increased assistance to civilians in Gaza.
What’s the difference between a humanitarian pause and a cease-fire?
While the United States has repeatedly said it does not currently support a general cease-fire, Kirby said Tuesday that Washington would back a humanitarian pause lasting a month or even longer.
“If that would give us the opportunity to get hostages out and get more aid in, we would absolutely support a humanitarian pause of a longer length than the week that we were able to accomplish,” he said.
Relief agencies, meanwhile, expressed alarm over the intensified fighting in Khan Younis, particularly around Nasser Hospital, where “thousands” of people, including 850 patients, were trapped, Doctors Without Borders said Tuesday night.
The medical charity said that an Israeli evacuation directive was impossible to follow for many because of the danger and inaccessibility of the hospital’s surroundings.
Nasser Hospital is one of two remaining in southern Gaza able to treat the critically wounded, it said on social media. A day earlier, Israel ordered the evacuation of an area containing more than 500,000 people in Khan Younis, the U.N. humanitarian affairs office said, which included three hospitals.
The World Health Organization also said Wednesday that al-Kheir Hospital, a small hospital run by nongovernmental organizations in Khan Younis with about 30 beds, was facing “military incursions,” with several health workers detained.
Nine displaced people were killed and 75 were injured after tank shells struck a shelter in Khan Younis operated by the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and ignited a fire there, an agency official said Wednesday.
Thomas White, the director of UNRWA affairs, wrote on the social media platform X that a UNRWA compound in Khan Younis that sheltered tens of thousands of displaced people was hit.
“Two tank rounds hit building that shelters 800 people,” White wrote.
“Buildings ablaze and mass casualties,” he noted in a separate post. “… People are trapped.”
White said that UNRWA staff had been unable to access the center for two days. The site is in an area where Israeli forces are advancing after having previously told Gazans to flee there for their safety.
U.N. teams were “trying to reach the centre,” White said, but found the “agreed upon route with Israeli Army blocked with earth bank.”
The IDF did not respond in detail to questions about the strike on the UNRWA shelter, but said in a statement that a “combat team is located around [Khan Younis], in the western part, and have begun to operate within it.” The IDF accused Hamas of having “command and control centers, Hamas outposts and Hamas security headquarters” in the area, while acknowledging it as “a dense area and an area that consists of civilians” as well as shelters and hospitals.
“It is a place that requires very specific methods of action and precise operations,” the statement said. “This operation will continue for several days until we maximize the achievements: dismantling Hamas’ military framework and Hamas strongholds.”
UNRWA operates 154 shelters in Gaza, housing and providing aid to many of Gaza’s 1.7 million displaced people. Since Oct. 7, UNRWA has reported 249 incidents affecting its shelters and premises. The agency estimates that at least 341 displaced people in UNRWA shelters have been killed since the beginning of the war.
Kelly Kasulis Cho and Frances Vinall in Seoul, Susannah George in Doha, Qatar, Mikhail Klimentov in Washington, Miriam Berger in Jerusalem and Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.