Hopes high for Gaza hostage deal - but fears over Israeli withdrawal hold up talks

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El Sisi strikes upbeat note and invites US President Donald Trump to attend ceremony if deal reached

Israel's two-year assault on Gaza has left the strip's inhabitants living in homelessness, hunger and despair. EPA

Optimism has risen sharply that a deal may be within reach in talks on a Gaza peace plan, with top US envoys joining the negotiations and Egypt's president inviting US President Donald Trump to a signing ceremony if Israel and Hamas reach an agreement.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, speaking at a police graduation ceremony, said he was “hearing good things” from the negotiations that began on Monday in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh.

He did not elaborate but added that senior American emissaries – US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Mr Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner – were in Egypt to join the negotiations on Wednesday.

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“They have come with a strong will, message and mandate from President Trump to end the war in this round of negotiations,” said Mr El Sisi.

“I invite President Trump to attend the signing ceremony in Egypt if a deal is signed,” said the Egyptian leader, whose country has for months been unsuccessfully mediating to end the Gaza war alongside Qatar – another close American ally – and the US.

Turkey, another US ally, has also been quietly playing a mediating role in the two-year-old conflict. Its intelligence agency chief Ibrahim Kalin was in Egypt on Wednesday along with Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Qatar's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, to join the talks.

Hamas officials in Sharm El Sheikh are led by Khalil Al Hayah, the group's chief negotiator who survived an Israeli assassination attempt in Qatar last month. Israel's delegation is led by Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and includes senior officials from the Mossad spy agency and the domestic security agency Shin Bet.

Smoke rises following an Israeli strike in the northern Gaza Strip. AP

Mr Trump on Tuesday added another upbeat note, saying Washington would do everything possible to ensure all sides abide by a ceasefire. “The primary guarantee is, once this deal happens, if it does happen, they're in negotiations right now, we are going to do everything possible,” he said during a meeting with Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Hamas has also contributed to the optimism now surrounding the talks, with a senior group official saying it had shared with Israeli negotiators the list of Palestinian detainees it wants Israel to free from its prisons in exchange for the 48 hostages the militant group is holding.

“The mediators are making great efforts to remove any obstacles to implementing the ceasefire, and a spirit of optimism prevails among all,” Taher Al Nunu said from Sharm El Sheikh.

Sources said significant progress has been made on the logistics and technicalities involved in the hostage-prisoner exchange, but cautioned that Hamas told mediators it needed up to 10 days to locate the spots where deceased hostages have been buried before exhuming their remains.

Of the 48 hostages held by the militant group, 20 are believed to be alive.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Wednesday that "a lot of progress has been made so far" in Sharm El Sheikh.

"So, what is good news is that the parties showed great will for the release of the prisoners and the hostages," he told reporters in Ankara after a phone call with Mr Kalin.

However, said the sources, an agreement between the two sides on Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, Hamas's disarmament and governance of the Palestinian territory after the war is proving much more difficult to negotiate than the hostages for prisoners swap.

They said Hamas was not budging on any of its long-standing conditions of a full Israeli withdrawal – save for a border strip Israel wants to keep for security reasons – a long-term ceasefire and that control of the territory should be placed in the hands of Palestinians.

Mr Al Hayah, Hamas's chief negotiator, said the group wants guarantees from Mr Trump and the sponsor countries that the war will end once and for all.

Israel has continued strikes on Gaza even as negotiations take place in Egypt. AP

“We do not trust the occupation, not even for a second,” he told Egypt's state-linked television network Al Qahera News, referring to Israel. “The Israeli occupation throughout history does not keep its promises, and we have experienced it twice in this war. Therefore, we want real guarantees.”

Hamas, according to the sources, was also insisting that the Palestinians it wants to see walk free from Israeli prisons include prominent figures such as Marwan Bargouthi and Ahamed Saadat of the mainstream Fatah movement, and Ibrahim Hamed of Hamas's military wing.

Hamas also wants to lay down, rather than surrender, its arms and have them stored in Gaza under Egyptian supervision, said the sources.

In addition to a ceasefire and the release of hostages, Mr Trump's plan also calls for the disarmament of Hamas and a gradual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The plan also states that Israel will not annex Gaza and that the estimated two million Palestinians in the enclave will not be evicted as previously suggested by Israel and Mr Trump himself.

The plan further includes provisions for sending sufficient humanitarian aid into Gaza and the reconstruction of the area.

Al Nassr street during an Israeli army operation in Gaza city. EPA

The negotiations on the US President's plan are widely considered the most promising so far for ending Israel's war on Gaza, which has to date killed more than 67,000 Palestinians and laid to waste most of the territory.

The Israeli army began its offensive in Gaza after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking another 250 hostage.

Israel's conduct in the strip has given rise to charges of genocide across much of the world and deliberately starving the residents of Gaza, where the UN has declared a famine in August.

Additional reporting by Lizzie Porter in Istanbul