Netanyahu blows past ceasefire talks deadline to confer with Trump

A deadline to begin talks on extending Gaza’s ceasefire arrived Monday with the Israeli prime minister in Washington, silence from his office about when a negotiating team might engage with Hamas, and considerable uncertainty about what the next stage of the fragile truce will look like.

The ceasefire, in place for just over two weeks, is set to expire on March 1. Under the terms of the deal, talks on the next phase are supposed to begin no later than Monday.

But the Israeli government has yet to publicly unveil a negotiating team for the talks, let alone send them to Qatar or Egypt, where Hamas is sending a delegation this week. Hamas has not publicly commented on Monday’s deadline.

Qatar’s prime minister, who has acted as an intermediary in the talks, said Sunday that there were “no clear details” on when or how the talks would start. “We hope to see some movement in the coming days,” Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said during a press conference in Doha.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear that he sees the path forward not in Doha or Cairo, but in Washington, where he will this week become the first foreign leader to hold a formal meeting with US President Donald Trump.

Netanyahu’s office said on the eve of his departure that he had agreed with Trump’s Middle East envoy that “negotiations on the second phase of the hostage deal will begin with their meeting in Washington,” during which “they will discuss Israel’s positions.”

Credit: cnn.com

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