Gaza ceasefire talks underway in Doha as deaths top 40,000

DOHA: The United States hailed a “promising start” to Gaza ceasefire talks on Thursday, as pressure mounted for a deal to halt the spread of a war that the Hamas-run territory´s health ministry said has killed 40,005.

Talks involving CIA director William Burns opened in the Qatari capital Doha, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

“Today is a promising start,” Kirby told reporters in Washington, adding: “There remains a lot of work to do.”

The talks were expected to continue on Friday, he said.

Hamas official Osama Hamdan said the movement did not take part in Thursday´s meeting but stood ready to join the indirect negotiations if they produced new commitments from Israel.

The Palestinian group has demanded the implementation of a truce plan laid out in late May by US President Joe Biden. “If the mediators succeed in forcing the (Israeli) occupation to agree, we would, but so far there´s nothing new,” Hamdan told AFP.

He said Hamas would not take part in protracted negotiations that “give (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu more time to kill the Palestinian people”.

So far, there has been only one truce in November, when Gaza fighters released 105 hostages seized in the October 7 attack, the Israelis among them in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

The latest diplomatic push comes as the health ministry in Gaza said the death toll in the besieged Palestinian territory had surpassed 40,000 -- which UN chief Antonio Guterres said was “yet another reason” why a ceasefire was needed now.

“Given the... disturbing number of people who remain unaccounted for, who may be trapped or dead under the rubble, this number may, if anything, be an undercount,” his spokesman Farhan Haq said.

“This is yet another reason why we need to have a ceasefire now, as well as the release of all hostages and unimpeded humanitarian assistance.”

The Gaza health ministry, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant casualties, said the tally included 40 deaths in the previous 24 hours.

The Israeli military said it had killed “more than 17,000” Palestinian militants in Gaza since the war began.

British foreign minister David Lammy and his French counterpart Stephane Sejourne are to discuss the truce talks with Israel´s top diplomat Israel Katz on Friday.

Hamas officials, some analysts and critics in Israel have said Netanyahu has sought to prolong the war for political gain. Israeli media this week quoted Defence Minister Yoav Gallant as privately telling a parliamentary committee that a hostage release deal “is stalling... in part because of Israel”.

Netanyahu´s office accused Gallant of adopting an “anti-Israel narrative” and said Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is “the only obstacle to a hostage deal”.

In Gaza, where the war has destroyed much of the territory´s housing and other infrastructure, relatively few deaths were reported on Thursday.

In the deadliest bombardment, emergency services said air strikes killed five people in Gaza City. Israel´s military said troops had killed about 20 militants in Rafah, southern Gaza.