Israeli ministers planned to meet on Saturday evening to decide on the next steps in the latest American-backed effort to reach a Gaza cease-fire after Hamas said it was ready for negotiations on the proposal.
Late Friday night, Hamas delivered its formal response to the cease-fire framework, which it said was “characterized as being positive,” and added that it was prepared to start new talks about how to put it into effect.
Israeli officials will have to determine whether to send negotiators to talks with Hamas to flesh out the finer points. The country’s security cabinet — a group of senior ministers — is expected to convene on Saturday night for consultations.
The two sides refuse to meet face to face, so they will most likely travel to an Arab country where Qatari or Egyptian mediators will ferry messages back and forth. No venue has been announced.
Under the latest proposal, the sides would observe a 60-day truce during which hostages would be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners and Israeli troops would pull back to agreed lines, according to people familiar with the talks, who spoke anonymously to discuss sensitive issues. Mediators would use the pause to negotiate an agreement on permanently ending the war.
Though both Israel and Hamas appear willing to explore the new plan, they still could stall over the most sensitive sticking points, as has happened before.
Hamas has been seeking guarantees that any truce lead to a lasting conclusion to the conflict, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has said he does not want to permanently stop the war before ending Hamas’s rule over Gaza.
According to a Hamas official and another person briefed on the negotiations, Hamas has requested changes to the latest proposal on at least three issues. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.
One is how aid would enter Gaza during the truce. Another is how far Israeli forces would withdraw from positions in Gaza. And the third is the language around guarantees that the deal would create a path toward ending the war.
Mediators have repeatedly failed to secure a comprehensive cease-fire. But President Trump says he hopes an initial truce could come together as soon as next week.
Mr. Netanyahu is set to meet Mr. Trump in Washington on Monday. Just weeks ago, Mr. Trump fulfilled one of Mr. Netanyahu’s longstanding ambitions when the United States joined an Israeli assault on Iran’s nuclear program.
“I’m very optimistic, but look, it changes from day to day,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Friday, shortly after Hamas replied to the U.S.-backed framework.
Israel’s war with Hamas is the deadliest episode in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, killing more than 57,000 people in Gaza, according to the Gaza health ministry. The ministry’s toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but its lists include thousands of children.
The war was set off by the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack that the Israeli authorities said killed about 1,200 people and saw about 250 people taken as hostages to Gaza. It was the deadliest single day in Israel’s history.
Israel believes that about 20 hostages are still alive and that the bodies of 30 others are still being held in Gaza.
The war has gone on for more than 20 months, punctuated by two brief cease-fires during which hostages were exchanged for Palestinian prisoners. The last truce began in mid-January and lasted for about two months before Israel resumed attacks in Gaza.
The war has been devastating for Gazan civilians, many of whom have spent more than a year displaced, fleeing for their lives across the enclave. Israeli airstrikes have reduced much of the territory to rubble, while restrictions on goods have often made finding enough food and water a daily struggle.
On Saturday, the U.N. World Food Program said a recent assessment had found that “nearly one person in three is not eating for days at a time” in Gaza. Surging malnutrition had left about 90,000 children and women needing urgent treatment, the group said.
“The situation is the worst I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to find words to describe the level of desperation I have witnessed,” said Carl Skau, the agency’s deputy executive director, who recently visited Gaza City. “People are dying just trying to get food.”
Hundreds of Palestinians trying to get food from a newly imposed Israeli-backed system for distributing aid have been killed, Gaza health officials say. Some Palestinian witnesses have said that Israeli soldiers, who guard the outer approaches to the aid hubs, have shot at people as they tried to reach the distribution sites.
The Israeli military has responded to a number of reports of killings near aid sites by saying that its troops had fired “warning shots,” but has largely not taken responsibility for the killings.
Israel says the aid initiative — known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation — is intended to prevent Hamas from benefiting from international aid. The United Nations and other aid groups oppose the system, saying Israel is trying to control the flow of food to advance military aims in Gaza.
Rawan Sheikh Ahmad contributed reporting.
Aaron Boxerman is a Times reporter covering Israel and Gaza. He is based in Jerusalem.
Adam Rasgon is a reporter for The Times in Jerusalem, covering Israeli and Palestinian affairs.
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