Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said on Saturday the pattern of negotiations for a framework ceasefire deal for the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza was "not very promising" in recent days.

Qatar's Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani attends an interview in Doha.

"The pattern in the last few days are not really very promising but, as I always repeat, we will always remain optimistic and will always remain pushing," Sheikh Mohammed said at the Munich Security Conference.

Sheikh Mohammed, who is also foreign minister, said he could not get into the details of negotiations but as with past deals there were two elements, the humanitarian conditions in Gaza and the number of Palestinians who would be released in exchange for hostages held by Hamas.

"I believe in this agreement we are talking at a bigger scale and we still see some difficulties on the humanitarian part of these negotiations," he said.

He added that he thought that if negotiations on the humanitarian element of any deal progressed then the obstacle over the numbers of those released would be ultimately tackled.

Talks involving officials from Qatar, Egypt, Israel and the United States have so far not yielded a deal for a pause in the fighting.

Mediator says talks on Gaza not 'progressing as expected' after momentum in recent weeks

Demonstrators protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and call for new elections in the latest weekly protest against his handling of the Israel-Hamas war, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Feb. 17, 2024.

 Talks on a potential cease-fire deal in Gaza “have not been progressing as expected” in the past few days after good progress in recent weeks, key mediator Qatar said Saturday, as Israel's prime minister accused the Hamas militant group of not changing its ”delusional" demands.

Speaking during the Munich Security Conference, Qatar's prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdurrahman Al Thani, noted difficulties in the “humanitarian part” of the negotiations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under pressure to bring home remaining hostages taken in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, said he sent a delegation to cease-fire talks in Cairo earlier in the week at U.S. President Joe Biden’s request but doesn't see the point in sending them again.

Hamas wants a permanent cease-fire in Gaza and the release of Palestinians held by Israel.

Netanyahu also pushed back against international concern about a planned Israeli ground offensive in Rafah, a city on southern Gaza's border with Egypt. He said “total victory” against Hamas requires the offensive, once people living there evacuate to safe areas. Where they will go in largely devastated Gaza is not clear.

New airstrikes in central Gaza on Saturday killed more than 40 people, including children, and wounded at least 50, according to Associated Press journalists and hospital officials. Israel’s military said it carried out strikes there against Hamas.

Five people were killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a house outside Khan Younis in the south, according to health officials, and another five people, including three children, were killed in an airstrike on a building north of Rafah. Dr. Marwan al-Hams, director of Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital, said other bodies were being pulled from the rubble.

Israel’s air and ground offensive was triggered by the Oct. 7 attack that killed some 1,200 people in Israel and took 250 others hostage.

The Gaza Health Ministry on Saturday raised the overall death toll in Gaza to 28,858, saying the bodies of 83 people killed in Israeli bombardments were brought to hospitals in the past 24 hours. The count does not differentiate between combatants and civilians, but the ministry says two-thirds of those killed are women and children.

The war also has caused widespread destruction, displaced some 80% of Gaza's population and sparked a humanitarian crisis in the Hamas-run enclave.

EGYPT CONCERNED ABOUT SPILLOVER

More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are packed into Rafah, which Israel portrays as the last significant stronghold of Hamas fighters.

Biden has urged Israel not to carry out an operation there without a “credible” plan to protect civilians and to instead focus on a cease-fire. Egypt has said an operation could threaten diplomatic relations.

Israel has said it has no plans to force Palestinians into Egypt. New satellite photos, however, indicate that Egypt is preparing for that scenario. The images show Egypt building a wall and leveling land near its border with Gaza.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who also spoke at the Munich Security Conference, said “it is not our intention to provide any safe areas or facilities, but … we will provide the support to the innocent civilians, if that was to take place.”

President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi affirmed during a call with France’s leader that Egypt categorically rejected “the displacement of Palestinians to Egypt in any way, shape or form," according to el-Sisi's office.

Two senior Egyptian officials said Egypt is building additional defensive lines in an existing buffer zone that extends 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the border. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details with the media.

The buffer zone, built as part of Egypt's battle against an Islamic State group insurgency, was meant to prevent weapons smuggling to and from Gaza.

ANOTHER CHALLENGE TO AID

Israel has not presented specific evidence for its claim that Hamas is diverting U.N. aid, and its targeted killings of Gaza police commanders guarding truck convoys have made it “virtually impossible” to distribute the goods safely, a top U.S. envoy said in rare public criticism of Israel.

David Satterfield, the Biden administration's special Middle East envoy for humanitarian issues, said criminal gangs are increasingly targeting the convoys following the departure of police escorts after Israeli strikes.

“We are working with the Israeli government, the Israeli military in seeing what solutions can be found here because everyone wants to see the assistance continue,” Satterfield told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Friday. A solution "is going to require some form of security escorts to return.”

Satterfield said Israeli officials have not presented “specific evidence of diversion or theft” of U.N. assistance, but that the militants have their own interests in using “other channels of assistance ... to shape where and to whom assistance goes.”

Israel has alleged repeatedly that Hamas is diverting aid, including fuel, after it enters Gaza, a claim denied by U.N. aid agencies. Last week, an Israeli airstrike on a car killed three senior police commanders in Rafah. Two officers were killed in another strike.

Satterfield also addressed challenges for the main U.N. agency aiding Palestinians in Gaza, whose director accused Israel in remarks published Saturday of trying to “destroy" the organization and warned that its operations will halt in April without more support.

ISRAELI TROOPS ENTER A HOSPITAL

In recent weeks, Israel's military has focused on Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city and a Hamas stronghold.

The army said Saturday that it had arrested 100 suspected Hamas militants at the city's Nasser Hospital. Israel's defense minister has said at least 20 of those detained were involved in the Oct. 7 attack.

The Health Ministry said troops turned the hospital into “military barracks" and detained a large number of medical staff. Israel says it does not target patients or doctors, but staff say the facility is struggling under heavy fire.

Nour Abou Jameh was among the thousands sheltering at Nasser Hospital who were forced to leave in the past week. “Shooting and shelling was coming from all directions,” Jameh said. “When we left at night, bodies were in the streets, and even tanks moved on them and crushed them.”

Hamas’s demands for hostage deal are ‘disconnected from reality,’ Israel’s hostage coordinator says

Hamas’s demands for a hostage deal are “delusional” and need to be “close to reality,” Israel’s Coordinator for the Captives and the Missing, Gal Hirsch, told CNN Saturday.

“We want a deal very much and we know we need to pay prices. But Hamas’s demands are disconnected from reality - delusional,” the former Israel Defense Forces commander said in an interview with CNN’s Alex Marquardt at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.

Hamas’s proposal for a ceasefire and hostage deal envisaged a three-stage process over four-and-a-half months, during which Israeli troops would gradually withdraw from Gaza, hostages would be released and Palestinian prisoners in Israel would be freed, according to a copy of the group’s counteroffer obtained by CNN. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed this proposal as “delusional.”

The Israeli leader has repeatedly said that the war in Gaza will continue until Israel destroys Hamas’ leadership and rescues the hostages.

There were further talks this week but a number of sticking points emerged. CNN previously reported that US officials are increasingly concerned whether Netanyahu is genuinely interested in reaching a hostage deal at the present time, given the opposition to any form of compromise with Hamas from within his government.

Hirsch, who works in Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office, said he has concerns that the Hamas political officials negotiating the hostage deal are not in contact with Hamas officials on the ground in Gaza. He suggested that, though Israel and Hamas had previously agreed on a deal to supply medication to Israeli hostages, the hostages did not receive this medication.

“We need proof that there is someone that can deliver,” Hirsch said. “Show us that the medical support that was sent to our hostages has arrived to its destination. This is very important because it will show us that there is someone there that can really deliver and release our hostages.”

On Friday, the IDF said “medicines were found with the names of Israeli hostages on them” during their operation at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. So far, Israel has not found any hostages in the medical complex despite saying they had evidence to the contrary. The IDF did not provide visual evidence of the found medication and Hamas said the IDF claims were “not true.”

There is “nothing more important” for the IDF than bringing the hostages back home, Hirsch told CNN on Saturday, adding that the military is willing to pay a “big price” for this. This price stops short of ending Israel’s war against Hamas, though, he noted.

“We are ready to stop warfare by ceasefires, not to stop the war,” Hirsch said. “The war won’t end. Hamas will be dismantled, but we would like very much to make a deal and to bring our hostages back home. This is very, very important to us.”

As well as believing that Hamas’s proposals are disconnected from reality, Hirsch said that he also believes the group is suggesting a deal that it is planning to break the terms of.

“They wanted very much to break the potential deal just as they did in the previous one,” he suggested. “Actually, they know that they have no authority to close the deal, probably, and they’re exaggerating in a way that is very, very far, far, far away from reality.”

In late 2023, Israel released 180 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in exchange for 81 hostages held by Hamas.

When asked by Marquardt if the IDF would be willing to release Palestinian prisoners who have life sentences, or who carried out attacks in Israel, in exchange for Israeli hostages, Hirsch only said that he suggests Hamas bring proposals that are “close to reality.”

Asked about Israel’s potential plans for a ground offensive in Rafah, southern Gaza, where more than 1.3 million Palestinian civilians are seeking refuge, Hirsch said that “Rafah is next, of course.”

“In Rafah, there are many hostages and many, many terror groups - actually Hamas is still there,” Hirsch claimed. He said that the IDF has “morals and values” and that it is doing “everything we can to avoid possible damage,” but added that “Rafah must be next, because we must release the hostages.”

The UN has warned that displaced Palestinians in Rafah are reportedly fleeing towards northern Deir al Balah following intensified Israeli airstrikes. Aid agencies have warned there is no safe place to go in Gaza.

Netanyahu halted Gaza truce talks over 'delusional' Hamas demands

Israel has sent negotiators for truce talks in Cairo as requested by U.S. President Joe Biden but they did not go back for further talks because Hamas' demands were "delusional," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday.

Netanyahu also said Israel would not give in to "international dictates" regarding a statehood agreement with the Palestinians, which he said could only be reached through direct negotiations without preconditions.

The Egyptian and Qatari-mediated talks to try to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and secure the release of over 100 Israeli hostages being held in the Hamas-ruled territory have yet to produce results. A round of inconclusive talks in Cairo ended on Tuesday.

Asked during a press conference on Saturday why Israeli negotiators did not return for further talks, Netanyahu said: "We got nothing except for delusional demands from Hamas."

Those demands, he said, included ending the war and leaving Hamas as it is, freeing "thousands of murderers" from Israeli jails, and even demands regarding a flashpoint holy site in Jerusalem known as the Temple Mount in Judaism and the Noble Sanctuary in Islam.

He said Israeli representatives in Cairo "sat and listened and there was no change. I wanted to say not a millimeter - but there was not a nanometer of change."

Netanyahu said there was no reason for them to go back "until we see a change".

Adding pressure on Netanyahu to reach a deal with Hamas, thousands of Israelis gathered outside the military headquarters in Tel Aviv in support of the hostages still in Gaza. They held up photographs and signs calling for their release, including one that read: "Time is running out!"

Among them was Michael Levy, whose brother Or was taken hostage from an outdoor dance festival near the Gaza border in the Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 which triggered the present war.

"We have no time anymore. My brother," he said, pausing to look down at his shirt with his brother's picture, "has lost his wife, (she) was murdered in this horrible attack on October 7. He has a son, a 2-year-old son, who is waiting for him at home."

The Hamas attack killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli tallies. The militants also seized 253 hostages, though more than 100 of them were freed in a short-lived November truce.

Israel's air and ground offensive has since devastated much of Gaza, killing 28,775 people, also mostly civilians according to Palestinian health authorities, and forcing nearly all of its more than 2 million inhabitants from their homes.

Regarding the possible "unilateral recognition" of a Palestinian state, Netanyahu said there could not be a "bigger prize for terrorism".

"Israel under my leadership will continue to strongly oppose the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state," he said. "An arrangement can be reached only through direct negotiations between the sides, without preconditions."

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh has blamed Israel for a lack of progress in achieving a ceasefire deal in Gaza, the group said in a statement on Saturday.

Haniyeh said Hamas would not accept anything less than a complete cessation of hostilities, Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and "lifting of the unjust siege," as well as a release of Palestinian prisoners serving long sentences in Israeli jails.