A senior delegation from the Hamas terror group will travel to Cairo for talks with negotiating teams for a Gaza ceasefire that include representatives from Qatar, Egypt and the United States, a Hamas source told Ynet on Sunday morning .
Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas’ leader in the Gaza Strip who led the group’s negotiations in recent rounds, will head the delegation. Al-Hayya was a target of the assassination attempt in Doha early last month, and footage of him released overnight was the first since that attempt, the source said.
The source said the delegation is expected to meet with Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy for the Middle East who is leading Washington’s talks, and with Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law. “The discussions will focus on the mechanism for releasing the hostages — first and foremost those who are alive — and on the demand for Israeli withdrawal from certain areas of the Strip, a halt to unmanned aerial vehicle activity, and an end to the fighting,” the source said.
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The source said Hamas is demanding the release of 250 security prisoners as part of the deal, including Fatah senior official Marwan Barghouti. “If Israel approves the list of veterans according to length of sentence, that could mean his release,” he said, adding that “this issue is expected to produce a dispute over Israel’s right of choice. The issue of control of the Gaza Strip on the day after the war will not be raised at this stage of the talks.”
The source also said that: “Under the agreement, Israel must halt the military operation in Gaza City and across the Strip and Israeli forces must withdraw from the city. The release of the hostages will be carried out gradually over several days, and detainees will be transferred according to the previous mechanism through the International Committee of the Red Cross.” Saudi paper Asharq wrote that “the talks in Cairo are intended to begin preparing the conditions on the ground as a prelude to a prisoner-exchange process.”
Meanwhile CNN reported that Hamas is expected to object to the initial withdrawal map of Israeli forces in the Strip published by Trump on Saturday. The report said the president’s map shows the deepest lines of army control inside the Strip during cease-fires with Hamas, deeper than the withdrawal lines proposed by the mediators during talks this summer — when it was said Israel would remain only up to 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) from the original boundary — and therefore the map is expected to provoke opposition from the Palestinian terror group.
An Israeli source who spoke to the U.S. network said the withdrawal lines Trump presented on Saturday largely match the lines where the IDF exercised control before it launched Gideon's Chariots II to seize Gaza City.
The map Trump unveiled Saturday resembles the initial withdrawal line sketched in yellow on a map that was published more than a week ago as part of the president’s 21-point plan. The new map is more detailed and clearly shows Rafah remaining under Israeli control, as does the Philadelphi Corridor along the border with Egypt. In the northern Strip the map explicitly includes Beit Hanoun as territory that will remain under Israeli control. The map also indicates that in the first phase of the withdrawal IDF forces will remain 6.5 kilometers (4 miles) deep in the southern Strip, in the Khan Younis area.
Trump emphasized that this is an “initial withdrawal,” meaning his plan envisions a phased pullback of the IDF from Gaza: After the initial withdrawal, intended to allow the release of the hostages, Israel would gradually transfer control of additional areas to an international Arab-Muslim force that would be established to ensure the Strip’s demilitarization. According to the original withdrawal map published as part of the plan, the IDF would continue to hold a security perimeter along the Strip’s borders and at its border with Egypt, in the Philadelphi Corridor, “until it is completely ensured there is no terror threat from the Gaza Strip.”
Trump, who in recent days has intensified efforts to end the war in Gaza, posted on his Truth Social platform images from a rally held in Tel Aviv Saturday night calling for the release of the senior hostages. The pictures show protesters holding a large sign in English reading: “Now or never.”
Israeli delegation to Cairo
The Israeli delegation to Cairo will be led by Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who was appointed earlier this year to head Israel’s negotiating efforts in place of Mossad chief David Barnea. The delegation will also include deputy Shin Bet chief M., Hostages and Missing Persons Coordinator Maj. Gen. (res.) Gal Hirsch, head of intelligence efforts on hostages and missing persons Maj. Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon, and additional representatives from the IDF, Shin Bet and Mossad.
Saturday night Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a recorded statement saying Israel is on the verge of a “great achievement” in which all 48 hostages in Gaza would be returned in a single phase “while the IDF remains deep within the Strip and in the controlling areas within it.”
Netanyahu said he hopes the news will come as soon as the upcoming Sukkot holiday, but stressed that it is not final. “As a result of the intense military pressure we applied and the diplomatic pressure, Hamas was pressured into agreeing to the plan we presented,” he said. “In the first stage, Hamas will release all of our hostages, and IDF forces will redeploy in a way that the IDF will continue to hold all of the controlling areas deep inside the Strip."
Netanyahu described the talks in Cairo as aimed to “close the technical details of the release of our hostages.” He added that Israel and the U.S. want to finish the negotiations within days — while leaving open the option of resuming the fighting: “In the second stage, Hamas will be disarmed and the Strip demilitarized. This will happen either via a diplomatic route according to the Trump Plan – or via a military route by us. Either it will be achieved the easy way, or it will be achieved the hard way – but it will be achieved.”
Finance Minister and minister for northern and southern rehabilitation Ze’ev Elkin told Ynet on Sunday morning that “it’s clear Hamas does not like Trump’s plan.” He said the terror group “would like to return a negative answer but it will not dare to.”
“The plan is built differently, Hamas does not like it, and only when it is ready to move toward releasing the hostages can we advance. It’s too early to celebrate because Hamas will try every ruse to try to drag out time. In the big picture — this is a good agreement for the State of Israel,” he said.