Truce talks between Israel and Hamas in Qatar reach 'dead end'

Truce talks between Israel and Hamas in Doha, Qatar reached a dead end according to reports, with Israel's Mossad intelligence services ordered to go home.

“Due to the dead end in negotiations, and following instructions from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mossad head David Barnea ordered the negotiating team in Doha to return home,” said a statement from Netanyahu’s office.

Israel accused Hamas of refusing to release all the women it held. A Palestinian official said the breakdown occurred over female Israeli soldiers.

Renewed fighting in Gaza stretched into a second day on Saturday after talks to extend a week-old truce with Hamas collapsed and mediators said Israeli bombardments were complicating attempts to again pause hostilities.

Following the attacks by Hamas on 7 October in Israel, where 1,200 people were killed and 240 taken hostage, Israel attacks killed more than 15,000 Palestinians.

Eastern areas of Khan Younis in southern Gaza came under intense bombardment as the truce deadline lapsed shortly after dawn on Friday, with columns of smoke rising into the sky, Reuters reports.

Israel said its ground, air and naval forces struck more than 200 “terror targets” in Gaza. By Friday evening, health officials in the coastal strip said Israeli strikes had killed 184 people, wounded at least 589 others and hit more than 20 houses.

Early on Saturday, rocket sirens sounded in Israeli communities outside Gaza, but there were no reports of serious damage or casualties. Footage of Gaza, taken from southern Israel, included the sounds of explosions and showed smoke rising into the sky.

The warring sides blamed each other for the collapse of the truce, during which Hamas militants had released hostages in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

The United Nations said the fighting would worsen an extreme humanitarian emergency. “Hell on Earth has returned to Gaza,” said Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN humanitarian office in Geneva.

A pause that started on 24 November had been extended twice, and Israel had said it could continue as long as Hamas released 10 hostages a day. But after seven days during which women, children and foreign hostages were freed, mediators failed to find a formula to release more.

The director general of the Red Cross, Gen Robert Mardini, said on Saturday that the resumption of fighting was intense, describing Gaza as being in “shambles and rubble”.