Negotiations to renew the truce in Gaza, sponsored by Qatar, have officially ended. Israelis and Hamas leaders blame each other for blowing up the last of the bridges after a cessation of hostilities expired on Friday. The Mossad delegation has left Doha, the capital of Qatar, and the Palestinian Islamist movement says it will not return to the negotiating table until Tel Aviv declares a permanent truce in the midst of increasing Israeli bombing in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli government ordered this Saturday the withdrawal of the intelligence delegation it sent to Qatar to negotiate pacts and a truce with the Islamist group Hamas, mediated by Qatari, Egyptian and American authorities, as negotiations reached a dead end.

“Due to the impasse in the negotiations and following instructions from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mossad chief David Barney has ordered the Doha negotiating team to return to Israel,” the head of the government office said in a statement issued on behalf of the intelligence agency. “The terrorist organization Hamas did not fulfill its part of the agreement, which included the release of all children and women based on a list provided to Hamas and approved by the group,” he added.

Increased airstrikes

For its part, Hamas confirmed the failure of the negotiations. The deputy head of the Hamas Politburo, Saleh al-Arouri, told the Qatari television channel Al Jazeera that there will be no prisoner exchange while the attack on the Gaza Strip continues. “There are currently no negotiations on a truce. There will be no exchange of prisoners until the aggression ends and a complete and final ceasefire is achieved,” he said. “The occupiers insist that women and children are still being held, but we said that we have handed them all over. The prisoners remaining in Gaza are soldiers and civilians who served in the occupying army. Our Zionist prisoners will not be released until “All our prisoners are released and a ceasefire is established. The resistance is prepared for any Israeli military scenario, be it ground, air or other war,” he added.

The situation on the ground clearly demonstrates the lack of negotiations, with the Israeli army calling for new evacuations as the offensive advances south of the sector where more than 1.8 million people are displaced. The explosions have become especially intense since this Saturday. More than 30 people were killed early this Sunday in Israeli airstrikes in areas of the southern cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah. Hundreds of residents remain trapped in shelled areas of Khan Yunis as main roads leading to other parts of the city or further south have been destroyed or severely damaged.

End of the truce

Israel and Hamas broke a truce struck by Qatar, Egypt and the United States on Friday morning, which included the release of 105 hostages kidnapped by the Islamist group (81 Israelis and 24 foreigners) in exchange for 240 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons, all of them women and minors .

The truce, which lasted from November 24 to 30, marked a pause in the fighting of the war that erupted on October 7 and allowed humanitarian aid to flow into the devastated Gaza Strip. According to Israeli authorities, Hamas still holds 132 living hostages, including two children, brothers Ariel and Kfir Bibas, aged 4 years and 10 months, respectively, who were kidnapped along with their mother Shiri Silverman Bibas – of Argentinean descent. and his father Yarden. Bibass.

Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said last night that Hamas had not fulfilled its commitment to release the mother and two children of the Bibas family. But Hamas claims that the three men were killed in Israeli bombings and that it offered to hand over their bodies, but Israel did not accept it.

The war broke out on October 7 after a Hamas attack that included firing thousands of rockets into Israel and infiltrating some 3,000 militias that killed about 1,200 people and kidnapped another 240 in Israeli villages near the Gaza Strip.

Since then, Israeli forces have continued a relentless air, land and sea offensive against the Palestinian enclave, which has left more than 15,000 people dead, nearly 6,000 trapped under rubble and nearly two million displaced people living in the midst of a severe humanitarian crisis.