Hopes for ceasefire in Gaza war

The talks between Israel and Hamas were "very serious discussions and negotiations", according to White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruled out a ceasefire before the "elimination of Hamas", the release of the hostages and the "end of the threat posed by the Gaza Strip".

As the AFP news agency learned from Hamas circles, Haniya, who lives in Qatar, wanted to talk to Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel "about ending the aggression and the war, preparing an agreement on the release of prisoners and ending the siege of the Gaza Strip". Egypt is considered an important mediator between Israel and the Palestinians.

Before his departure, Hanija met with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian in Doha. According to sources close to the militant Palestinian group Islamic Jihad, which is allied with Hamas, its leader Siad al-Nachala will also travel to Egypt at the beginning of next week.

In November, a total of 105 hostages abducted from Israel and 240 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel were released in the course of a one-week humanitarian ceasefire brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the USA.

According to Israeli information, there are currently 129 hostages still in the Gaza Strip. At a meeting with the families of the hostages, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu emphasized that his intelligence chief David Barnea was working on the release of all those abducted. As AFP learned from negotiating circles, Barnea met this week with the head of the US foreign intelligence agency CIA, Bill Burns, as well as Qatar's head of government, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, in Warsaw, Poland.

While international criticism of Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip is growing, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the world must exert pressure not only on Israel, but also on Hamas. He spoke of a "silence about what Hamas could do, should do, must do if we are to end the suffering of innocent men, women and children".

At international level, the UN Security Council on Wednesday once again postponed a vote on a new resolution on the Gaza war calling for a ceasefire. The members are struggling to find a suitable wording to avoid a veto by the USA, Israel's most important ally. The USA has been working "intensively" on this, Blinken said on Wednesday. "I hope we come to a good result."

The draft resolution originally submitted by the United Arab Emirates had called for an "urgent and permanent cessation of hostilities". According to information from diplomatic circles, the amended version now only refers to a "suspension" of the fighting.

"We hope that the Security Council will raise its voice in favor of a mature resolution," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday at a meeting with the member states of the Arab League. They also spoke out in favor of adopting the resolution.

Israel and Hamas have been at war for more than two months. On 7 October, hundreds of fighters from Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the EU and the USA, invaded Israeli towns and villages and committed atrocities against civilians. According to Israeli reports, around 1140 people were killed and around 250 people were taken hostage in the Gaza Strip.

In response, the Israeli army has since bombed targets in the Gaza Strip and launched a ground offensive. According to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, which cannot be independently verified, at least 20,000 people have been killed so far.

Meanwhile, fighting continued in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. The Israeli military reported house-to-house fighting and more than 300 attacks within one day. These were directed against "dozens of terrorists and terrorist infrastructures", including rocket launching areas and military control centers in Chan Junis in the south of the Palestinian territory.

According to a media report, a German was also killed in the fighting. "We have been informed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) that unfortunately a German citizen is among the victims of the fighting in Gaza," explained the Federal Foreign Office, according to Bild newspaper. According to the newspaper, the German-Israeli Urija B. had been fighting for an Israeli elite unit against Hamas in the south of the Gaza Strip, where he was injured last week Thursday.

Hamas reported attacks on the southern towns of Rafah and Chan Junis, Deir al-Balah in the center of the coastal strip and the city of Gaza in the north. According to Hamas, at least twelve people were killed.