DOHA: Hamas said talks in Qatar on Tuesday aimed at a truce and hostage-prisoner exchange in Gaza were “serious and positive,” a day after an Israeli delegation arrived in Doha to meet with mediators.
“Hamas affirms that, in light of the serious and positive discussions taking place today in Doha under the auspices of our Qatari and Egyptian brothers, reaching an agreement for a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange is possible if the occupation ceases to impose new conditions,” the Palestinian group said in a statement.
Israeli officials arrived in Doha on Monday for talks aimed at bridging gaps between the two parties, a source with knowledge of the discussions told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity due to their sensitivity.
The meetings follow a trip by David Barnea, who heads Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, to the Qatari capital on Wednesday, the source said.
Qatar, along with the United States and Egypt, has been involved in months of behind-the-scenes negotiations for a Gaza truce and hostage release.
But apart from a one-week pause in fighting late last year, during which scores of Hamas-held hostages were released in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails, successive negotiations have failed to halt the war.
On Monday, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz indicated Israeli negotiators have “not been this close to an agreement” for the release of hostages in Gaza since the November 2023 truce.
A senior Hamas official based in Doha also said on Monday that negotiations for a deal were “closer than ever before” but warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could still “disrupt the agreement as he has done every time before.”

GENEVA: The United Nations said Tuesday it expects around one million people to return to Syria in the first half of 2025, following the collapse of president Bashar Assad’s rule.
Assad fled Syria just over a week ago, as his forces abandoned tanks and other equipment in the face of a lightning offensive spearheaded by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), ending five decades of repressive rule by Assad’s family.
The rule was marked by the mass jailing and killing of suspected dissidents, and nearly 14 years of civil war that left more than 500,000 people and forced half of the population to flee their homes.
The ousting of Assad sparked celebrations around Syria and beyond, and has prompted many to begin returning to their war-ravaged country.
“We have forecasted that we hope to see somewhere in the order of one million Syrians returning between January and June of next year,” Rema Jamous Imseis, the Middle East and North Africa director for the UN refugee agency UNHCR, told reporters in Geneva.
She said the recent developments had brought “a tremendous amount of hope... for the largest displacement crisis we have on planet Earth to finally be resolved.”
But she stressed that “we also have to recognize that a change in the regime doesn’t mean that there is an end to the humanitarian crisis already there.”
Pointing to “immense challenges,” she called on countries that have been hosting the millions of Syrian refugees to refrain from hastily sending them back.
“No one should be forcibly returned to Syria and that the right of Syrians to maintain access to asylum must be preserved,” Imseis said.
Almost immediately after Assad’s fall, a number of European countries said they would freeze pending asylum requests from Syrians, while far-right parties have been pressing for the deportation of refugees back to Syria.
“What we’re saying to governments that have suspended asylum proceedings is... please continue to respect the right to access territory, to lodge an asylum claim,” Jamous Imseis said.
“People simply cannot after 14 years of displacement, pack a bag overnight and return to a country that has been devastated by conflict,” she said.
“Give us and Syrian refugees time to assess whether it’s safe to go back... It’s simply too early to see how safe it’s going to be.”
At the same time as many people are returning to Syria, Jamous Imseis pointed out that more than a million people had become newly displaced in Syria in the past three weeks, “mostly women and children.”
She highlighted that there was also a need to reevaluate who was at risk in the radically-changed Syria.
“Risk profiles which existed prior to December 8 may no longer need that same level of protection, or do not have that same threat or fear of violations against their rights, whereas now with this regime change, we have other vulnerable groups that have emerged in that process,” she said.