An Israeli delegation will take part in the latest round of negotiations in Cairo aimed at reaching a truce in the Gaza conflict and a hostage release deal, an Israeli government official said on Sunday.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said on Sunday that Israel would not agree to a ceasefire after six months of war against Hamas in Gaza until the hostages being held in Gaza are released.
His comments made at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting came as the new round of truce talks in Egypt were set to begin.
Netanyahu said that despite growing international pressure, Israel would not give in to “extreme” demands from Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas, which sparked the war on Oct. 7 with its deadly attack on southern Israel.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military has withdrawn more ground troops from the southern Gaza Strip, leaving just one brigade there six months after the start of its offensive, a spokesperson for the force said on Sunday.
The military, which has been reducing numbers in Gaza since the start of the year to relieve reservists and growing pressure from its ally Washington to improve the humanitarian situation, did not give details on its reasons or the number of soldiers involved.
The move comes as Egypt prepares to host a new round of talks aimed at reaching a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
It was unclear whether the withdrawal would delay a long-threatened incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which Israeli leaders have said is needed to eliminate the Hamas movement ruling the Palestinian enclave.
Palestinian residents of the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, which has come under Israeli bombardment in recent months, said they had seen Israeli forces leaving the centre of the city and retreating to the eastern districts.
Israel’s offensive, launched after the shock attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7, has focused in the past months on the south of the Gaza Strip.
More than 250 hostages were seized and some 1,200 people killed during the Oct. 7 attack, according to Israeli tallies. More than 33,100 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
Rafah has become the last refuge for more than a million Palestinians sheltering in the territory near the border with Egypt.
Israel is also on alert for a possible retaliatory attack from Iran in reaction to the killing of Iranian generals on April 1.—Agencies
