Israeli and Qatari officials were set to meet in Norway as the countries aim to revive talks about the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza in return for a ceasefire and the freeing of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani was due to meet David Barnea, director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, in Oslo, the people said, describing the talks as exploratory,” the report claimed after the Israeli army said that it investigating the killing of three hostages which it had been mistakenly identified as a threat by soldiers.
David Barnea is also likely to meet with Egyptian officials, the Journal reported after significant obstacles have prevented a resumption of negotiations on a new hostage deal including disagreements over the possible terms within Hamas, the report claimed.
During a week-long truce in late November, Hamas released more than 100 women, children and foreigners it was holding in Gaza in exchange for the release of 240 women and teenagers.
Is this happening because of mistaken killing of three Gaza hostages by Israel?
The incident has sparked protests in Tel Aviv after the Isralie military said that Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz and Samer El-Talalqa were shot during operations in Gaza City which Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as an “unbearable tragedy”.
The three were among about 250 people taken hostage during Hamas’ October 7 attacks in Israel, which killed around 1,140 people. In Gaza, Israel’s retaliatory strikes have killed at least 18,800 people, mostly women and children.
Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said that during fighting in Shejaiya district of Gaza City, troops “mistakenly identified three Israeli hostages as a threat and as a result, fired toward them and the hostages were killed”.
The military started “reviewing the incident” and that “immediate lessons from the event have been learned” and passed on to all troops on the ground, it said.
