Israeli delegation to visit Qatar today for talks on hostage settlement in Gaza Strip

Tel Aviv: According to The Times of Israel, Israel will dispatch a team to Doha, the capital of Qatar, today to continue talks on a hostage deal in the Gaza Strip.

The team will include representatives from Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad; the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF); and Shin Bet, also known as the Israeli Security Agency, which is Israel’s operational, technical, and intelligence organization.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said Thursday that the delegation’s trip to Qatar to explore a possible hostage-ceasefire agreement had been authorized by the prime minister.

“Netanyahu authorized a working-level delegation from the Mossad, Shin Bet, and IDF to continue negotiations in Doha,” the Prime Minister’s Office stated in a statement.

A civic, volunteer-based organization called the Captives and Missing Relatives Forum, which represents the captives’ relatives, praised Netanyahu’s move and said that the “window of opportunity” must not be squandered.

“The Hostages and Missing Families Forum welcomes the decision to send the Israeli delegation to Qatar,” the organization said in a rough translation of the post on X. We can’t let this chance pass us by! We insist that the prime minister assign the negotiation team a mandate to negotiate a deal that will result in the return of all remaining hostages, allowing the surviving to be rehabilitated and the dead to be buried with dignity.

Qatar said earlier in November 2024 that it has suspended its mediation of a ceasefire since Israel and Hamas were unwilling to come to a deal.

A CNN story claims that Israel and Hamas blamed one another for the stalling of negotiations after Netanyahu accused Hamas of “reneging on understandings” and Hamas claimed that Israel had imposed “new issues and conditions” on the parameters of an agreement. Sources within Israel and Hamas, however, expressed cautious confidence in December over the likelihood of an agreement.

The biggest Palestinian terrorist organization, Hamas, carried out a devastating terror strike on Israel on October 7, 2023. Hamas massacred more than 1,200 people, including foreigners, raped women, and kidnapped more than 250 captives. Only around 100 are thought to still be alive; the others are said to have died in captivity, and some were sent back to Israel in December 2023 as part of a temporary truce.