Blinken calls for a push to bring the Gaza ceasefire agreement to a ‘finish line’ By Reuters
James Mackenzie and Nidal al-Mughrabi
JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Monday for a final push for a Gaza ceasefire before President Joe Biden leaves office, after a Hamas official told Reuters the group had cleared a list of 34 hostages as the first to will go free under the truce.
“We very much want to wrap this up in the next two weeks, the time we have left,” Blinken said at a news conference in South Korea, when asked if a ceasefire deal was close.
Israel sent a team of mid-ranking officials to Qatar for talks mediated by Qatari and Egyptian mediators. Some Arab media report that they are expected to be joined by David Barnea, the head of the Mossad, who led the negotiations. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office did not comment.
It remains unclear how close the two sides remain, with some signs of progress but little sign of progress on some of the key demands that have so far blocked any truce for more than a year.
US President-elect Donald Trump has said there will be “hell” in the Middle East if hostages held by Hamas are not freed before his inauguration on January 20, now seen in the region as an unofficial deadline for a ceasefire deal.
According to Gaza health officials, nearly 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli assault on Gaza. The attack was launched after Hamas fighters invaded Israeli territory in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
More than 100 hostages are believed to be still being held in Gaza, and Hamas says it will not release them without an agreement to end the war with an Israeli withdrawal. Israel says it will not stop its attack until Hamas is disbanded as a military and ruling power and all hostages are freed.
A Hamas official told Reuters the group had cleared a list of 34 hostages who could be freed in the initial phase of a ceasefire provided by Israel. The list provided by the official included female soldiers, as well as elderly, female and minor civilians.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the list was provided by Israel to Qatari mediators back in July, and Israel has so far received no confirmation or comment from Hamas on whether the hostages on it are alive.
“Israel will continue to act relentlessly for the return of all our hostages,” the statement said.
THE BABY IS DYING FROM A COLD
Israeli forces, which have intensified their operations in recent weeks, continued to shell the enclave, killing at least 48 people and wounding 75 in the past 24 hours, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Bitter winter weather continued to take its toll on hundreds of thousands displaced in makeshift shelters, and officials said a 35-day-old baby died of exposure, at least the eighth victim of the cold in the past two weeks.
Officials at Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip said at least 40 people were wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a school compound housing displaced families.
While Israel’s military says Hamas has been largely destroyed as an organized military force, its fighters remain entrenched in the rubble of Gaza, which has been largely reduced to wasteland by months of bombardment.
On Monday, three rockets were fired from Gaza, one of which hit a building in the nearby Israeli city of Sderot, and there were no casualties, Israeli police said.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a separate Palestinian territory where violence has also risen since the start of the Gaza war, gunmen killed three Israelis and wounded several others when they opened fire on a car and a bus near the Israeli settlement of Kedumim.
