Truce deal could include release of several hundred Palestinian detainees held by Israel
\nNews Agency
\nGAZA
\nA new ceasefire between Israel and Hamas could start as soon as Monday and last through Ramadan, US President Joe Biden said, in a deal that would also free dozens of hostages held in Gaza.
\nIn the protracted bid to broker a truce, mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been putting proposals to the warring parties, with negotiations still ongoing.
\nThey are seeking a six-week halt to the fighting and the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since Hamas\u2019s October 7 attack on southern Israel.
\nThe truce deal could include the release of several hundred Palestinian detainees held by Israel, media reports suggest.
\n\u201cMy hope is by next Monday we\u2019ll have a ceasefire,\u201d Biden said in response to a question about when a truce might start, adding: \u201cWe\u2019re close, we\u2019re not done yet\u201d.
\nHe later said an agreement \u201cin principle\u201d was in reach for a temporary truce to last through the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which starts on March 10 or 11, depending on the lunar calendar.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan as well, in order to give us time to get all the hostages out,\u201d Biden said.
\nAn unidentified Israeli official had earlier told news site Ynet the \u201cdirection is positive\u201d.
\nQatar\u2019s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani \u2014 whose country hosts Hamas leaders and helped broker a one-week truce in November \u2014 is due in Paris Tuesday, according to the French presidency.
\nSheikh Tamim has met Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Doha as part of his bid for an \u201cimmediate and permanent ceasefire agreement\u201d, the official Qatar News Agency said.
\nIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stressed that any truce would delay, not prevent, a ground invasion of Rafah in the far south of the Gaza Strip, which he said was necessary to achieve \u201ctotal victory\u201d over Hamas.
\nThere has been huge international pressure, including from the United States, for Israel to hold off on sending troops into Rafah, where an estimated 1.4 million Palestinian civilians have sought refuge from the fighting. Netanyahu\u2019s office said on Monday that the military had shown the war cabinet its plan for evacuating civilians from Rafah, but no details have been released on where those displaced people might go.
\nUN chief Antonio Guterres warned that any assault on Rafah, the entry point to Gaza for desperately needed relief supplies, would \u201cput the final nail in the coffin\u201d of aid operations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Truce deal could include release of several hundred Palestinian detainees held by Israel News Agency GAZA A new ceasefire between Israel and Hamas could start as soon as Monday and last through Ramadan, US President Joe Biden said, in a deal that would also free dozens of hostages held in Gaza. In the protracted bid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390122,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-390098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n