CAIRO: Hamas negotiators began intensified talks on Saturday on a possible Gaza truce that would see a halt to the fighting and the return to Israel of some hostages, a Hamas official told Reuters, with the CIA director already present in Cairo for the indirect diplomacy.
The Hamas delegation arrived from the Palestinian Islamist movement’s political office in Qatar, which, along with Egypt, has tried to mediate a follow-up to a brief November ceasefire amid mounting international dismay over the soaring death toll in Gaza and the plight of its 2.3 million inhabitants.
Taher Al-Nono, a Hamas official and adviser to Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, said meetings with Egyptian and Qatari mediators had begun and Hamas was dealing with their proposals “with full seriousness and responsibility.”
However, he reiterated the group’s demand that any deal should include an Israeli pullout from Gaza and an end to the war, conditions that Israel has previously rejected.
“Any agreement to be reached must include our national demands; the complete and permanent ending of the aggression, the full and complete withdrawal of the occupation from Gaza Strip, the return of the displaced to their homes without restriction and a real prisoner swap deal, in addition to the reconstruction and ending the blockade,” the Hamas official told Reuters.
An Israeli official signalled its core position on this was unchanged, saying “Israel will under no circumstances agree to ending the war as part of a deal to free our hostages.”
The war began after Hamas stunned Israel with a cross-border raid on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 252 hostages taken, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 34,600 Palestinians have been killed — 32 of them in the past 24 hours — and more than 77,000 have been wounded in Israel’s military operation, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The bombardment has laid waste to much of the coastal enclave.

PRESSURE FOR DEAL
Before the talks began there was some optimism over a potential deal.
“Things look better this time but whether an agreement is on hand would depend on whether Israel has offered what it takes for that to happen,” a Palestinian official with knowledge of the mediation efforts, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
Washington — which, like other Western powers and Israel, brands Hamas a terrorist group — has urged it to enter a deal.
Progress has stumbled, however, over Hamas’ long-standing demand for a commitment to end the offensive by Israel, which insists that after any truce it would resume operations designed to disarm and dismantle the faction.
Hamas said on Friday it would come to Cairo in a “positive spirit” after studying the latest proposal for a deal, little of which has been made public.
Israel has given a preliminary nod to terms which one source said included the return of between 20 and 33 hostages in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and a weeks-long suspension of fighting.
That would leave around 100 hostages in Gaza, some of whom Israel says have died in captivity. The source, who asked not to be identified by name or nationality, told Reuters their return may require an additional deal with broader Israeli concessions.
“That could entail a de facto, if not formal, end to the war — unless Israel somehow recovers them through force or generates enough military pressure to make Hamas relent,” the source said.
Egyptian sources said CIA Director William Burns arrived in Cairo on Friday. He has been involved in previous truce talks and Washington has signalled there may be progress this time.
The CIA declined to comment on Burns’ itinerary.
Egypt made a renewed push to revive negotiations late last month, alarmed by the prospect of an Israeli assault against Hamas in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians have taken shelter near the border with Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
A major Israeli operation in Rafah could deal a huge blow to fragile humanitarian operations in Gaza and put many more lives at risk, according to UN officials. Israel says it will not be deterred from taking Rafah eventually, and is working on a plan to evacuate civilians.
Saturday’s Cairo talks come as Qatar reviews its role as mediator, according to an official familiar with Doha’s thinking. Qatar may cease hosting the Hamas political office, said the official, who did not know if, in such a scenario, the Palestinian group’s delegates might also be asked to leave.

UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations food agency warned Sudan’s warring parties Friday that there is a serious risk of widespread starvation and death in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan if they don’t allow humanitarian aid into the vast western region.
Leni Kinzli, the World Food Programme’s regional spokesperson, said at least 1.7 million people in Darfur were experiencing emergency levels of hunger in December, and the number “is expected to be much higher today.”
“Our calls for humanitarian access to conflict hotspots in Sudan have never been more critical,” she told a virtual UN press conference from Nairobi.
Sudan plunged into chaos in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, broke out into street battles in the capital, Khartoum. Fighting has spread to other parts of the country, especially urban areas and the Darfur region.
The paramilitary forces, known as the RSF, have gained control of most of Darfur and are besieging El Fasher, the only capital in Darfur they don’t hold, where some 500,000 civilians had taken refuge.
Kinzli said WFP’s partners on the ground report that the situation in El Fasher is “extremely dire” and it’s difficult for civilians wanting to flee the reported RSF bombings and shelling to leave.
She said the violence in El Fasher and surrounding North Darfur is exacerbating the critical humanitarian needs in the entire Darfur region, where crop production for staple cereals like wheat, sorghum and millet is 78 percent less than the five-year average.
On top of the impact of escalating violence, Kinzli said, “WFP is concerned that hunger will increase dramatically as the lean season between harvests sets in and people run out of food.” She said a farmer in El Fasher recently told her that her family had already run out of food stocks and is living day-to-day, an indication that the “lean season,” which usually starts in May, started earlier.
Kinzli said she received photos earlier Friday from colleagues on the ground of severely malnourished children in a camp for displaced people in Central Darfur, as well as older people “who have nothing left but skin and bones.”
“Recent reports from our partners indicate that 20 children have died in recent weeks of malnutrition in that IDP camp,” she said.
“People are resorting to consuming grass and peanut shells,” Kinzli said. “And if assistance doesn’t reach them soon, we risk witnessing widespread starvation and death in Darfur and across other conflict-affected areas in Sudan.”
Kinzli called for “a concerted diplomatic effort by the international community to push the warring parties to provide access and safety guarantees” for humanitarian staff and convoys.
“One year of this devastating conflict in Sudan has created an unprecedented hunger catastrophe and threatens to ignite the world’s largest hunger crisis,” she warned. “With almost 28 million people facing food insecurity across Sudan, South Sudan and Chad, the conflict is spilling over and exacerbating the challenges that we’ve already been facing over the last year.”
In March, Sudanese authorities revoked WFP’s permission to deliver aid from neighboring Chad to West Darfur and Central Darfur from the town of Adre, saying that crossing had been used to transfer weapons to the RSF. Kinzli said restrictions from Sudanese authorities in Port Sudan are also preventing WFP from transporting aid via Adre.
Sudanese authorities approved the delivery of aid from the Chadian town of Tina to North Darfur, but Kinzli said WFP can no longer use that route for security reasons because it goes directly into besieged El Fasher.
On Thursday, gunmen in South Darfur killed two drivers for the International Committee of the Red Cross and injured three ICRC staff members. On Friday, UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffith called the killing of aid works “unconscionable.”
Kinzli said the fighting “and endless bureaucratic hurdles” have prevented WFP from delivering aid to over 700,000 people in Darfur ahead of the rainy season when many roads become impassable.
“WFP currently has 8,000 tons of food supplies ready to move in Chad, ready to transport, but is unable to do so because of these constraints,” she said.
“WFP urgently requires unrestricted access and security guarantees to deliver assistance,” she said. “And we must be able to use the Adre border crossing, and move assistance across front lines from Port Sudan in the east to Darfur so we can reach people in this desperate region.”