Truce negotiations have stalled and European anger is growing against Israel
Financial Times
Qatari and Egyptian efforts to broker another truce between Israel and Hamas stalled on Saturday after Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a team of Mossad negotiators to return from Doha to Israel.
The Israeli Prime Minister's office accused Hamas of not fulfilling its part of the agreement, which included the release of all children and women according to a list that Israel said the militant organization had agreed to.
A person briefed on the talks said a team from Mossad, an Israeli intelligence agency, was in Doha on Saturday to discuss the possibility of resuming the truce to allow the release of more women and children.
The discussions made little progress and the Israeli team left later Saturday, the person said.
The negotiators also hoped to explore the possible next stage of the agreement on the exchange of hostages and prisoners. Qatar, along with the United States and Egypt, mediates the talks and communicates with Hamas, whose political leaders are in Doha.
Israel and Hamas blamed each other for the collapse of the truce, which came into force on November 24. Under the agreement, Hamas released 84 women and children while Israel released about 240 Palestinian women and children from prison.
People briefed on the talks said the deal collapsed when Hamas appeared to be struggling to find more women and children to release on Friday. Hamas said it had made offers to return hostages, including elderly captives.
Israel accused Hamas of walking away from the agreement, which was extended twice, and immediately responded by resuming its bombing of Gaza.
The Israel Defense Forces said that Hamas was still holding 136 people hostage, including 17 women and children. The remaining hostages were mainly Israeli soldiers and reservists. The families of four people who died in captivity in Gaza over the past week have been notified.
Negotiations to secure the release of the soldiers and reservists are likely to be more complicated as the militant group is expected to push for greater Israeli concessions.
Palestinian health officials said on Saturday that since the collapse of the truce, the Israeli offensive in Gaza has killed 193 people.
The Israeli military said it hit multiple "terrorist targets" in northern Gaza, including a mosque it said was being used as a command center by militants. It added that its planes "hit more than 50 targets in the Khan Yunis area" in southern Gaza overnight.
About 80 percent of Gaza's 2.3 million residents are mobilized in the south after Israel ordered civilians to move from the north of the Strip.
The IDF sent text messages and dropped leaflets on Friday telling people in areas east of Khan Yunis, the largest city in the south of the Strip, to leave for Rafah, near Gaza's border with Egypt.
However, the UN humanitarian coordination office said on Friday evening:" no major displacements have been reported from these areas, " while Rafah was hit by at least one Israeli air strike on Friday morning.
The online map published by the IDF, which divides Gaza into enclaves to explain where civilians should leave, "does not specify where people should evacuate to,"the UN added.
"It is unclear how residents of Gaza will get to the map without electricity and amid frequent communication outages,"the UN added.
Aid organizations rejected Israel's demands for the establishment of a small" safe zone " in Al-mawasi, a strip of agricultural land on the coast, saying that the unilaterally declared safe zone could endanger civilians.
The IDF said that sirens sounded on Saturday morning across Israeli communities near Gaza, after Palestinian militants resumed firing rockets across the border.
The families of the hostages vowed to continue to press for their release, with one relative describing the end of the truce on Friday as a "big disappointment".
Martin Griffiths, the UN's chief humanitarian officer, said that civilians in Gaza "have nowhere safe to go and very few to survive". "They live surrounded by disease, destruction and death".
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said it received 50 aid trucks on Saturday, including food and medical supplies.
Western allies have pressed Israel to do more to protect civilians in Gaza. French President Emmanuel Macron, who is heading to Doha for talks on a long-term ceasefire, said: "We are at a moment when Israel will have to accurately define its goals and the end result it seeks. What is the complete destruction of Hamas and does anyone think it is possible If this is what it is, then the war will last 10 years."
