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Hopes rose this morning that Israel and Hamas may agree a ceasefire in Gaza after the Israeli foreign minister said negotiations in Cairo are the closest the sides have come to a deal since a November truce.

Closely following news that Israel is reducing the number of soldiers in southern Gaza, Israel Katz told Israel’s Army Radio that the two sides had “reached a critical point in the negotiations”, and “if it works out, then a large number of hostages will come home”. 

But things are rarely simple in the Middle East, and Katz’s announcement follows a series of “conflicting reports”, said Sky News.

The broadcaster cited a Hamas official who said this morning that “there is no change in the position of the occupation and there is “nothing new in the Cairo talks”, so there is “no progress yet”.

The Hezbollah-affiliated Al Mayadeen satellite channel echoed this, quoting a senior Palestinian official in Gaza as saying that “so far there is no progress”. Aidit Silman, a minister close to Netanyahu, told the Israeli media this morning that a ceasefire is still a long way away, noted Al Jazeera.

Israel must “implement an immediate ceasefire. It must stop the killing now”, said The Observer, and must “accelerate good-faith negotiations” in Cairo to “free the remaining Israeli hostages through a prisoner swap”.

The “fighting must stop”, said The Scotsman. Gaza needs “a truce rather than arms”, said People’s Daily, while The Independent recently went further, arguing that “the moment has come to do whatever it takes to force the government of Israel to end” the war.

Israel should announce that it is “ready to sign an immediate ceasefire”, and “pay any price (the duration of the ceasefire and the number of terrorists to be released from prison), provided that all hostages held in Gaza are returned to Israel”, said Ami Ayalon, previously head of Israel’s domestic intelligence service, in the Jewish Chronicle.

But, also writing in the Jewish Chronicle, Yossi Kuperwasser, the former head of the Research Division at the Israel Defense Forces’ Intelligence Corps, said that to achieve its “goals” in Gaza, Israel must fight on “to make sure that Hamas is defeated, to make sure that it loses control of Gaza and its population and to make sure it cannot recover”.

What next?

Katz’s remarks this morning were bolstered by reports from Egypt that the talks are progressing well, with the Qatari and Hamas delegations expected to “finalise” the terms of an agreement “within two days”, said The Guardian.

Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, is “desperate” for a ceasefire and hostage deal, a senior source in the Israeli government told Sky News. “Everything you see happening today is linked to hostage negotiations,” they added, because the global outrage over the killing of the World Central Kitchen employees has “changed everything”.

Also weighing on Jerusalem’s thinking is that Tehran has told Washington that it will refrain from responding to the airstrike in which senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders were killed in Damascus if a ceasefire in Gaza is agreed, noted the Jerusalem Post.

Tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated against Netanyahu at the weekend, demanding a Gaza hostage deal. The protestors “expressed their frustration with the government’s inability to free the around 130 hostages who remain in Gaza”, noted the BBC.

But Netanyahu also faces domestic opposition to a ceasefire. The “far-right” National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, warned the leader that if he decides to end the war on Gaza without “an extensive attack on Rafah” to defeat Hamas “he will not have a mandate to continue serving as prime minister”, said Al Jazeera.