Mossad seeks renewed Qatar talks after army kills Gaza captives
The Mossad chief will meet the Qatari PM to discuss negotiations for a captive exchange with Hamas following news Israeli forces killed three Israeli captives during fighting in Gaza
Israel's Mossad director David Barnea is expected to meet Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani in Europe this weekend to discuss resuming negotiations for an exchange of captives with Hamas, Axios reported on 15 December.
According to two sources briefed on the matter, Israel's return to the negotiating table suggests it is ready to try to explore a new deal after negotiations collapsed following a 7-day truce that saw women and children captives released by both sides via Qatari mediation.
Senior Mossad officials were scheduled to travel to Qatar for talks last week, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called off the trip, angering the families of the remaining captives.
“We are fed up with the indifference and deadlock,” families of the Israeli captives said in a statement.
Hamas captured over 200 Israelis during its 7 October attack on Israeli military bases and settlements surrounding Gaza, while Israel has long held thousands of Palestinians in its occupation prisons.
The announcement comes following Israel’s announcement its army had killed 3 Israeli captives held in Gaza by Hamas, allegedly by mistake.
The three Israeli captives were killed by Israeli troops who fired on them in the Shujaiyya neighborhood in northern Gaza where fierce fighting is taking place, military officials said.
Israeli forces secured the bodies and returned them to Israel.
According to an initial Israeli army investigation, the three Israeli captives were walking as a group, without shirts, when they were shot by a sniper who saw them from a distance of several tens of meters. One of the captives managed to escape to a nearby building and called for help in Hebrew, but was shot.
Several Israeli captives who were released during the truce told Prime Minister Netanyahu and others in the war cabinet that they feared being killed by Israeli shelling while in Gaza.
They complained that Israel claimed to have precise intelligence about where some of the captives are being held but endangered their lives by carrying out heavy shelling of these areas anyway.
One released captive said she had feared Israeli forces would kill her and then blame her death on Hamas.
Considerable evidence has emerged that Israeli forces deliberately killed some of their own soldiers and citizens on 7 October to prevent them being taken captive, per a policy known as the Hannibal directive.
If the meeting between the Mossad chief and Qatari prime minister takes place, it would be the first between senior Israeli and Qatari officials since the collapse of the seven-day truce and Israel’s expansion of its military ground operation to southern Gaza.
Senior Hamas official Bassem Neim said in late November the movement was "ready to release all soldiers in exchange for all our prisoners.”
Hamas is still holding more than 130 captives, who it says are all soldiers or former soldiers. More than 100 Israeli women and children were released as part of a deal that paused the fighting in Gaza for seven days.
240 Palestinian women and children were released, while some 7,000 Palestinians remain captives of Israel.