PARIS: The head of the US Central Intelligence Agency as well as top Egyptian, Qatari and Israeli officials were in Paris on Sunday working toward a ceasefire in Gaza, officials close to the participants said.
French authorities were also in touch with these four countries with the aim of negotiating a halt to hostilities between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the besieged territory, the sources said.
Israel said late Sunday that the discussions in Paris, attended by the heads of its Mossad intelligence agency and Shin Bet security agency, had been “constructive.”
But “there are still significant gaps which the parties will continue to discuss this week in additional mutual meetings,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.
A security source on Friday told AFP that CIA chief William Burns would meet his counterparts from Israel and Egypt, as well as Qatar’s prime minister “in the coming days.”
The source confirmed a report in The Washington Post last week that US President Joe Biden was sending Burns to try to negotiate the release of remaining Hamas-held Israeli hostages in exchange for a ceasefire.
The New York Times said on Saturday that US-led negotiators were getting closer to an agreement under which Israel would suspend its war in Gaza for about two months in return for the release of more than 100 hostages.
Quoting unidentified US officials, it said negotiators had developed a draft agreement that would be discussed in Paris on Sunday.
US President Joe Biden on Friday spoke with Qatar’s emir to discuss efforts to free the hostages, the White House said, however warning “imminent developments” were unlikely.
Qatar is playing a key role in the latest talks after brokering a hostage release deal in November.
Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in about 1,140 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
Militants also seized about 250 hostages and Israel says around 132 of them remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 28 dead captives.
Israel’s ensuing military offensive has killed at least 26,422 people, most of them civilians, in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
US, Israel, Egypt, Qatar officials in Gaza talks in Paris: sources
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US, Israel, Egypt, Qatar officials in Gaza talks in Paris: sources
- US President Joe Biden on Friday spoke with Qatar’s emir to discuss efforts to free the hostages
Iraq starts investigations into Daesh detainees moved from Syria
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s judiciary announced on Monday it has begun its investigations into more than 1,300 Daesh group detainees who were transferred from Syria as part of a US operation.
“Investigation proceedings have started with 1,387 members of the Daesh terrorist organization who were recently transferred from the Syrian territory,” the judiciary’s media office said in a statement, using the Arabic acronym for Daesh.
“Under the supervision of the head of Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, several judges specializing in counterterrorism started the investigation.”
Those detainees are among 7,000 IS suspects, previously held by Syrian Kurdish fighters, whom the US military said it would transfer to Iraq after Syrian government forces recaptured Kurdish-held territory.
They include Syrians, Iraqis and Europeans, among other nationalities, according to several Iraqi security sources.
In 2014, Daesh swept across Syria and Iraq, committing massacres and forcing women and girls into sexual slavery.
Backed by US-led forces, Iraq proclaimed the defeat of Daesh in the country in 2017, and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) ultimately beat back the group in Syria two years later.
The SDF went on to jail thousands of suspected extremists and detain tens of thousands of their relatives in camps.
Last month, the United States said the purpose of its alliance with Kurdish forces in Syria had largely expired, as Damascus pressed an offensive to take back territory long held by the SDF.
In Iraq, where many prisons are packed with Daesh suspects, courts have handed down hundreds of death sentences and life terms to people convicted of terrorism offenses, including many foreign fighters.
Iraq’s judiciary said its investigation procedures “will comply with national laws and international standards.”
