Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced Thursday that he had directed his country’s negotiators to travel to Cairo to continue talks aimed at maintaining the fragile ceasefire with Hamas. The move came just hours after Hamas returned the remains of four Israeli hostages as part of the final exchange in the first phase of the agreement.
While Netanyahu’s decision to send his team to Cairo offered a glimmer of hope, uncertainty loomed over the ceasefire’s future with just two days left before the end of its initial six-week period.
On Thursday, Hamas handed over the last of 33 hostages released during phase one, while Israel freed about 600 Palestinian prisoners in return. Some of the released detainees had been serving lengthy sentences, while others had been held since the start of the gaza war without formal charges. Emotional reunions took place in both the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza as freed prisoners stepped off buses, greeted by loved ones.
As of Thursday, 59 Israeli hostages remained in Gaza, with only 24 confirmed to be alive, according to the Israeli government. Their fate now hinges on the next phase of the ceasefire agreement, brokered by the U.S., Egypt, and Qatar.
The second phase of the deal was intended to see all remaining hostages freed in exchange for a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. However, Netanyahu faces mounting pressure from hardline members of his cabinet, who are pushing for an end to the truce and a resumption of Israel’s military campaign against Hamas, a group designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S., Israel, and the European Union.
Netanyahu has consistently stated that the objective of Israel’s military operation—which has resulted in over 48,000 deaths in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry—is to dismantle or at least weaken Hamas. Despite months of heavy bombardment and ground assaults, that goal remains unmet.