The latest flurry of Gaza cease-fire talks — the back-and-forth over now-familiar sticking points and appeals from around the world — obscures a grim truth about the monthslong efforts to end the Israel-Hamas war and free scores of hostages.

Any deal requires the signatures of two men: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

They are sworn enemies, notoriously tough negotiators and know that the outcome of the talks will profoundly shape their legacies. In Sinwar's case, it could mean life or death.

Both have strong incentives to end the war. But they may also think they stand to gain by holding out a bit longer, and that war is preferable to a deal that falls short of their demands.

Here's a look at the two leaders and the constraints they face.

What does Netanyahu want?

Netanyahu has promised “total victory” over Hamas and the return of all the hostages held in Gaza — goals that many believe are incompatible.

He has come under tremendous pressure from the hostages' families and much of the Israeli public to make a deal to bring them home, even if it leaves a battered Hamas intact. The United States, which has provided key military aid and diplomatic support to Israel, is also pushing for such a deal.

But Netanyahu's governing coalition relies on far-right ministers who want to permanently reoccupy Gaza and have threatened to bring down the government if he concedes too much. That would force early elections that could drive him from power at a time when he is on trial for corruption.

It would also hasten a broader reckoning over the security failures surrounding the Oct. 7 attack in which Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 others — on Netanyahu's watch. Netanyahu has rejected calls for a government investigation until the war is over.

The longer the war drags on, the more likely Israel is to achieve something that looks like victory — the killing of Sinwar, the rescue of more hostages — and the longer Netanyahu has to repair his political standing and reshape his legacy. But it also comes with risks as the number of soldiers killed in action rises nearly every day and Israel becomes increasingly isolated because of the suffering it has inflicted on Palestinians.

Netanyahu has clashed with his own defense minister over the endgame. Israeli media is filled with reports quoting unnamed senior security officials expressing frustration with Netanyahu, especially his demand for lasting control over two strategic corridors in Gaza. Some have gone so far as to accuse him of sabotaging the talks.

Both Israel and Hamas say they have accepted different versions of an evolving U.S.-backed cease-fire proposal in principle, while suggesting changes and accusing the other of making unacceptable demands.

Yohanan Plesner, head of the Israel Democracy Institute, a local think tank, acknowledged the anger directed at Netanyahu but said it was impossible to know which leader was the greater roadblock.

“If we saw Sinwar was serious about getting a deal, that would force Israel and Netanyahu to expose their cards,” Plesner said. The current situation is “almost like negotiating with oneself."

What does Sinwar want?

Sinwar wants to end the war — but only on his terms.

Israel's offensive has killed over 40,000 people, according to local health officials, displaced 90% of Gaza's population and destroyed its main cities. Hamas has lost thousands of fighters and much of its militant infrastructure.

Sinwar's only bargaining chips are the roughly 110 hostages still held in Gaza, around a third of whom are believed to be dead. And he needs much more than a temporary pause in the fighting if he hopes to salvage anything resembling victory from the Oct. 7 attack that he helped mastermind.

That begins with assurances that Israel won't resume the war once some or all of the hostages are freed. He also needs Israel to withdraw from all of Gaza to ensure that the lasting impact of the Oct. 7 attack is not a permanent reoccupation of the territory. The release of high-profile Palestinian prisoners as part of a deal is a sacred cause for Sinwar, who was himself a long-serving prisoner freed in an exchange. And he needs assurances that Palestinians will be able to return to their homes and rebuild them.

“Sinwar is very much concerned with bringing negotiations to a conclusion, whether with regard to a cease-fire or an exchange of prisoners, because in both cases, Sinwar will have come out as the winner,” said Nabih Awada, a Lebanese political analyst and former militant who spent years in an Israeli prison with Sinwar.

There are risks for Sinwar in drawing the talks out: More hostages are likely to die or be rescued as the war grinds on. Death, destruction and hardship in Gaza will continue, and could stoke Palestinian discontent with Hamas, with political implications down the line.

Sinwar himself, who sits atop Israel's most-wanted list, could be killed at any time. But given the centrality of martyrdom in Hamas' history and ideology, he may feel that outcome is inevitable — and preferable to a deal that looks like defeat.

Can any external pressure help?

Egypt and Qatar have served as key mediators with Hamas, but their influence is limited.

Any pressure exerted on Hamas' exiled leadership is unlikely to have much impact on Sinwar, who was appointed the overall head of Hamas after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran. Sinwar is believed to have spent most of the past 10 months living in tunnels under Gaza, and it is unclear how much contact he has with the outside world.

The United States has provided crucial military support for Israel throughout the conflict and has shielded it from international calls for a cease-fire. Earlier this year, President Joe Biden paused a shipment of hundreds of 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs to pressure Israel not to invade the southern city of Rafah — which it did anyway.

U.S. election politics could also blunt American pressure. Biden has shown little inclination to pressure Netanyahu, and Vice President Kamala Harris has offered no concrete policy changes. Donald Trump has urged Israel to finish up its offensive but would likely be even more accommodating to Netanyahu, as he was during his presidency.

Any U.S. arms embargo is even less likely when Israel faces a potential retaliatory strike from Iran over the killing of Haniyeh. Instead, the United States has poured military assets into the region, taking some of the pressure off Israel.

Sinwar might have hoped that the targeted killings of Haniyeh and a top Hezbollah commander last month would widen the war. But that appears less likely, with both Israel and Hezbollah applying the brakes following a heavy exchange of fire over the weekend.

The cease-fire talks have continued through it all, punctuated by fleeting moments of optimism.

The mediators have spent recent weeks trying to hammer out a bridging proposal with Netanyahu, but it's still a work in progress. It has not yet been submitted to Sinwar.

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Negotiations so far more effective than rescues in bringing Israeli hostages home from Gaza

Israel's military has rescued its eighth hostage from Gaza since the 10-month-old war began.

While the rescue Tuesday set off celebrations, it also renewed calls from the families of hostages who are still being held in Gaza for a deal that would bring home their loved ones before it's too late. They say an agreement, not military rescues, is the best hope.

International mediators have tried for months to broker a deal that would see scores of hostages still held by Hamas exchanged for Palestinian prisoners and a cease-fire. But Israel and Hamas cannot agree on key portions of the deal.

Of some 250 hostages taken by Hamas militants in the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war, around 105 were released in a cease-fire last November. Israel says 108 remain in Gaza, at least 36 of whom are believed dead.

“After 10 months, the IDF managed just to release a small number of hostages from Hamas and the rest of them must be released by negotiations and by ending this war,” said Mazen Abu Siam, a close friend of Qaid Farhan Alkadi, the hostage who was freed Tuesday.

Here's where things stand, according to official Israeli figures:

Hostages freed through military rescues

The Israeli military has rescued eight hostages in Gaza, per an AP count.

It brought one home in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack, a female soldier, Pvt. Ori Megidish, 19.

Two men, Fernando Simon Marman, 60, and Louis Har, 70, were rescued in February, when troops stormed a heavily guarded apartment in southern Gaza. Airstrikes carried out to provide cover during the raid killed more than 60 Palestinians, including women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The military rescued four hostages — Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41 — in June, killing at least 210 Palestinians in the operation, according to a Gaza health official.

On Tuesday, the military said it had rescued Alkadi.

Hostages killed by the Israeli military

Israeli troops mistakenly killed three hostages — Yotam Haim, 28, Samer Al-Talalka 25, and Alon Shamriz, 26 — in December.

The army’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said it was believed that the three had escaped their captors or had been abandoned.

The soldiers mistakenly identified the three Israelis as a threat and opened fire on them, he said.

Hostages released in earlier deals

Israel’s hostage crisis began when Hamas-backed militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and abducting about 250 more.

Of the hostages taken to Gaza, 105 were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November, in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners. The released hostages included 81 Israeli citizens and 24 foreign nationals, most of them Thai.

Four female hostages were released through earlier deals brokered by the U.S. and other mediators.

Hostages remaining in Gaza

Israel believes that 108 hostages, dead and alive, remain in Gaza, including four Israelis captured years earlier. Two of them, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, were Israeli soldiers believed to have been killed in a 2014 war.

Hostages who died in Gaza

Israel says it has determined that at least 36 of those who were taken Oct. 7 are dead and that militants are holding their remains. Some may have been killed during that attack.

The cause of death for others is unknown, although Hamas has claimed some were killed in Israeli airstrikes. Israeli officials believe the number of dead hostages could be higher.

Hostages not declared dead in Gaza

There are about 70 hostages left in Gaza who Israel has not pronounced dead.

That includes about 15 women and two siblings under the age of 5 — Kfir and Ariel Bibas, whose mother, Shiri Bibas, is also still in captivity.

Also included is Hersh Polin-Goldberg, a 23-year-old American-Israeli who was taken hostage at a music festival where over 300 people were killed. Polin-Goldberg's parents have led a global campaign calling for their son's release and drawing attention to the plight of the hostages. Hamas released a video of Polin-Goldberg in April. Badly wounded in the Oct. 7 attack, his left hand was amputated. But the video was the first sign that he hadn't been killed.

Dead hostages returned to Israel

Israeli troops have recovered the bodies of at least 20 hostages from Gaza, according to Israeli government figures.

The bodies of two hostages, including female soldier Noa Marciano, were brought back from Gaza in November. So were the bodies of the three hostages killed by friendly fire in December.

The bodies of seven hostages, two women and five men, were recovered in Gaza in May.

Last week, Israel recovered the bodies of six male hostages.

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Israeli hostage out of Gaza as truce talks held in Qatar

The brother of freed Israeli hostage Kaid Alkadi shows a mobile phone picture of him with another brother.

The Israeli military said a hostage was rescued Tuesday from a Gaza tunnel, more than 10 months after the Israeli Bedouin man was seized during the Hamas attack that triggered a devastating war.

Talks aiming to secure a Gaza truce and hostage release deal meanwhile continued in Qatar, a US official said. Neither Israel nor Hamas have confirmed their participation.

The Israeli military said forces had found Kaid Farhan Alkadi, 52, in a tunnel in southern Gaza "when he was alone", despite a previous assessment that militants "and explosives" were there.

He is one of 251 people abducted by Palestinian militants during the October 7 attack on southern Israel, 104 of whom are still captive in Gaza including 34 the military says are dead.

Violence meanwhile raged on in the war that has ravaged the Gaza Strip, displaced nearly all of its 2.4 million people at least once and triggered a humanitarian crisis.

The civil defence agency in the Hamas-run territory said separate Israeli strikes killed at least 15 people in Gaza City and in two refugee camps in central and southern Gaza.

At Israel's Soroka Medical Centre where Alkadi was taken to, hospital director Shlomi Kodesh told AFP he "appears to be in good condition".

"But anyone who was in tunnels for such an extended period of time is prone to significant medical problems" and Alkadi was kept for "continued evaluation", Kodesh told AFP.

A resident of Rahat, a predominantly Bedouin Arab town in southern Israel, Alkadi had been working as a guard at a warehouse in one of the areas militants stormed on October 7, according to the military.

Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum welcomed the release but stressed that "a negotiated deal is the only way" to ensure the return of other captives.

- US claims talks progress -

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has faced growing criticism from protesters accusing him of blocking a deal and prolonging the war for political gain, said Israel was "working tirelessly to bring all our hostages back".

Hostage rescues are rare, with Alkadi being the eighth freed alive by Israeli forces since the military began its ground operations in the Gaza Strip on October 27.

Scores were released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel during a week-long truce in November -- the only one in the war so far.

In a video issued by Netanyahu's office after he spoke with Alkadi, the hawkish leader said "military presence on the ground and continuous military pressure on Hamas" are required to secure the captives' release.

A key sticking point in negotiations has been Israel's insistence on keeping control of a Gaza-Egypt border strip to stop Hamas from rearming, something the militant group has refused to countenance.

Egyptian state-linked Al-Qahera News has said Cairo, which has been mediating the talks alongside Qatar and the United States, "will not accept any Israeli presence" on the so-called Philadelphi Corridor on the border.

The United States, Israel's top arms provider, struck a cautious note of optimism on Monday.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby reported "progress" in mediation efforts and said more talks involving lower-level "working groups" were expected in the coming days.

- 'Indiscriminate' -

The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign since then has killed at least 40,476 people in Gaza, according to the territory's health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

In the latest violence, an Israeli strike on central Gaza's Al-Maghazi refugee camp killed at least seven people, including three children from the same family, according to civil defence rescuers.

"We woke up to the sound of the explosion and shrapnel flying at us," said Mohammed Yussef, who witnessed the strike.

"There is no safe area in Gaza. Where do we go?"

A strike later on Tuesday on a house in Gaza City killed a woman and her three children, the civil defence agency said.

After the latest in a string of Israeli evacuation orders, the UN humanitarian office OCHA said its "ability to deliver essential support and services" had been "severely" hampered.

Amnesty International said two Israeli strikes on southern Gaza that killed at least 59 people in late May were "indiscriminate" and "should be investigated as war crimes".

The rights group said its investigation had found that "Israeli forces failed to take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimise harm to civilians" while targeting Palestinian militants at displacement camps.

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