Jerusalem: A joint meeting of senior officials from Israel, Qatar, Egypt, and the United States to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza adjourned early Sunday afternoon, several hours after it began in Rome, with no apparent progress reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that Mossad Director David Barnea has returned from his meeting with the mediators in Rome, and the negotiations are expected to resume “in the coming days.”
At the meeting, the officials discussed an Israeli document with “clarifications regarding the draft agreement that was conveyed from Israel,” the office said.
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, in the document, Israel toughens its position, demanding the addition of checkpoints along strategic roads between southern and northern Gaza and control over an area along the Gaza-Egypt border.
The meeting was part of an effort to reach a ceasefire deal in which more than 100 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza would be exchanged for hundreds of Palestinians jailed by Israel under a three-stage plan that has been discussed since late May.
