Israeli Ministers Set to Meet on Next Steps Toward Gaza Truce

Israeli government minsters planned to meet on Saturday evening to decide on the next steps in the latest American-backed effort to reach a Gaza cease-fire after Hamas said it was ready for negotiations on the proposal.

Late Friday night, Hamas delivered its formal response to the cease-fire framework, which it said was “characterized as being positive,” and added that it was prepared to start new talks about how to put it into effect.

Israeli officials will now have to determine whether to send negotiators to talks with Hamas to flesh out the finer points, with the help of mediators. The two sides refuse to meet face to face, meaning that they are likely to travel to an Arab country where Qatari or Egyptian interlocutors will ferry messages back and forth. No venue has been announced yet.

Under the latest proposal, the sides would observe a 60-day truce during which hostages would be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners and Israeli troops would pull back to agreed lines, according to people familiar with the talks who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues. Mediators would use the two-month pause to negotiate an agreement on permanently ending the war.

Though both Israel and Hamas appear willing to explore the new plan, they still could stall over the most sensitive sticking points, as has happened before.

Hamas has been seeking guarantees that any truce lead to a lasting end to the conflict, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has said he does not want to permanently stop the war before ending Hamas’s rule over Gaza.