Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at day three of indirect Israel-Hamas peace talks, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s trip to India, and rare optimism in France’s budget talks.
Day Three
New hope is emerging out of Egypt, where Israeli and Hamas delegations are engaging in high-level, indirect talks to end the war in Gaza, which marked its two-year anniversary on Tuesday. Among the biggest signals that negotiators are close to accepting the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace proposal is Hamas’s move on Wednesday to release a list of hostages and Palestinian prisoners who would be freed in a future swap.
On that list are individuals whose release Israel has long deemed off-limits. That includes former Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who was imprisoned in 2002 for planning attacks that killed five civilians during the Second Intifada. Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences, is popular among Palestinians and is even considered a potential challenger to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. His release would be a major win for Hamas.
Also signaling optimism about ongoing peace talks is the involvement of high-level negotiators, many of whom joined the mix on Wednesday. U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner arrived in Egypt on Wednesday. Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer was also in Egypt on Wednesday to lead Israel’s delegation, and Qatar sent Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani to help mediate the talks. To top off the VIP list, Turkey directed intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin to join the negotiations; Ankara, a powerful NATO ally, has long maintained close contacts with Hamas.
Indirect negotiations began on Monday and have focused on three key issues: halting the fighting on both sides, withdrawing Israeli forces from Gaza, and exchanging Hamas-held hostages for Palestinian prisoners. But several conditions remain in contention—namely, that Hamas disarm, which the group refuses to do so long as Israeli troops occupy Palestinian territory. However, three people close to the talks told the New York Times on Wednesday that Hamas could agree to partial disarmament if Trump secures guarantees from Israel that it will not resume fighting once the hostages are freed.
Another sticking point is Gaza’s future governance. Hamas has agreed to relinquish control to a Palestinian technocratic government—but only if it’s supervised by the Palestinian Authority and not subject to foreign rule. This aligns with a long-standing Egyptian proposal but goes against Trump’s 20-point plan, which stipulates that the government would be overseen by an international transitional body that the U.S. president would lead.
To top off the list of disputes, Hamas (along with Arab leaders and several European powers) maintain that the peace deal must pave the way for eventual Palestinian independence. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to reject any suggestion of a future state of Palestine.
Despite the outstanding issues, Israeli media, citing an unnamed senior political source, reported Wednesday that the announcement of a deal could come as early as Thursday.
Today’s Most Read
- Who Holds the High Cards in Sino-American Supply Chain Poker? by Graham Allison
- Two Ways Oct. 7 Changed Israel and One Way It Didn’t by David E. Rosenberg
- Don’t Let Chinese Fears of a U.S. Decapitation Strike Lead to Nuclear War by Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga
What We’re Following
Free trade in the future. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer began a two-day trip to India on Wednesday focused on strengthening bilateral economic and security cooperation. While attending the Global Fintech Fest, Starmer is expected to meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss the free trade agreement that the two countries signed in July after three years of on-and-off-again negotiations; the deal aims to boost bilateral trade by roughly $35 billion by 2040.
Starmer said on Wednesday that he wants the deal to be implemented as soon as “humanly possible.” As part of the agreement, each country will allow the other more market access and will cut tariffs on several key goods, including automobiles, textiles, and whiskey. “I think the opportunities are already opening up,” Starmer told the U.K. trade delegation that accompanied him on his trip to Mumbai. “Our job is to make it easier for you to seize the opportunities.”
Not up for discussion, though, is immigration policy; Starmer has refused to relax visa rules for Indian workers and students.
Budget talks. French caretaker Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu expressed rare optimism on Wednesday about the likelihood that last-ditch negotiations to resolve the country’s political crisis will succeed in avoiding snap parliamentary elections. Lecornu resigned from office on Monday, less than a month after being appointed, over his appointment of a defense minister who served as finance minister when France’s public deficit soared. However, he agreed to stay on in a caretaker capacity for the following 48 hours to try to clinch a budget deal and stave off the dissolution of parliament. His deal aims to bring Paris’s deficit down to between 4.7 percent and 5 percent of the nation’s GDP; the current deficit rests at 5.8 percent, nearly double the EU’s 3 percent limit.
Lecornu met with conservative and center-right parties as well as the Socialist Party and Greens—all of whom have grown increasingly critical of French President Emmanuel Macron’s government. The far-right National Rally party boycotted the talks, instead reiterating calls for Macron to step down or call snap parliamentary elections. Even some of Macron’s past prime ministers have joined the call for an end to the administration.
Macron met with Lecornu later on Wednesday to discuss the results of the talks, which aim to pass a budget before the year ends. However, with the National Assembly split along several party lines, each demanding their own conditions to the budget proposal, it appears unlikely that Paris’s political gridlock will end before Lecornu fully leaves office.
Syrian cease-fire. Syrian government forces agreed to a cease-fire with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Tuesday, following deadly overnight clashes in Aleppo that killed at least two people. The truce was the result of a meeting between Syria’s defense minister and the SDF’s commander, who signed an agreement in March to integrate the Kurdish-led autonomous regions into the broader Syrian government led by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
The clashes in Aleppo came just after Syria on Sunday held its first parliamentary elections since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024. The vote has been postponed in Kurdish-held regions outside of government control, leaving 21 seats empty. According to preliminary results released by Syria’s electoral committee on Monday, 119 lawmakers have been selected so far, of whom six are women and 10 are religious and ethnic minorities. Sharaa will select the remaining third of the 210-member body in the upcoming weeks. —Maxine Davey and Eli Wizevich
Odds and Ends
Magical items that are bigger on the inside than they seem are a common trope in fiction. (Think the Tardis from Doctor Who, Hermione Granger’s purse in the Harry Potter series, or Mary Poppins’s handbag.) In the real world, scientists may not have invented magic yet, but on Wednesday, the Nobel Prize in chemistry went to three individuals whose work creating a new form of molecular architecture that mimics the “it’s bigger on the inside” mentality. The three chemists (who work in Australia, Japan, and the United States) formed metal organic frameworks that can absorb and contain gases, which experts say will aid efforts to reduce pollution and combat climate change.
The post Israel, Hamas Inch Closer to an Exchange Deal appeared first on Foreign Policy.
