Israel's delegation to Cairo where negotiations for a hostage release deal were underway, returned home on Thursday. Earlier the Hamas delegation also left Egypt for Qatar and CIA chief William Burns, flew back to Washington as negotiations stalled.
According to a report in Politico, quoting sources, the Israeli offensive on Rafah was partially the cause for the talks ending without an agreement. The sources said it was too soon to say that the talks had completely failed adding that American officials remained in Qatar and were in contact with all parties there.
According to reports in the Qatari al Araby Al Jadeed newspaper, a Hamas officials said the delegation returned to Doha because it had no authority to agree to any amendments to the proposed deal.
An Israeli official said the government's positions on the latest Hamas demands was given to mediators and they were now waiting for the terror group to respond to the Israeli reservations. The official who spoke to Reuters, also said that the operation in Rafah is continuing as planned despite the decision of U.S. President Joe Biden to withhold certain arms deliveries from Israel.
National Security spokesperson John Kriby said in a briefing from the White House that the U.S. was not backing away from its support of Israel but repeated Biden's position that a major Rafah operation by Israel will not advance the country's objective of defeating the Hamas. "Smashing into Rafah, in his view, will not advance that objective," he said in a briefing with reporters adding that there were better ways now to go after what remains of the terror group's leadership than an operation with significant risk to civilians.