By Tala Ramadan, Jana Choukeir and Nidal al-Mughrabi
SHARM EL-SHEIKH (Reuters) -Hamas said on Wednesday it had exchanged a list of the names of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners to be released under a swap deal and that it was optimistic about talks in Egypt on U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza.
Negotiations are focused on the mechanisms to halt the conflict, withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the swap deal, the Palestinian militant group added.
The timing of the implementation of the first phase of President Donald Trump’s 20-point initiative has not been agreed so far during talks in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, said a Palestinian source close to the negotiations.
Trump expressed optimism about progress toward a deal on Tuesday, the second anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel that triggered Israel’s assault on Gaza.
A U.S. team including special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who served as Middle East envoy during Trump’s first term, will take part in the talks over a plan that has come closest to silencing the guns.
But officials on all sides urged caution over the prospects for a rapid agreement.
Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s close confidant – was due to join the talks on Wednesday afternoon, according to an Israeli official.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, a key mediator, and Turkish spymaster Ibrahim Kalin, will also take part in the ceasefire negotiations in Sharm el-Sheikh on Wednesday, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Hamas wants a permanent, comprehensive ceasefire, a complete pullout of Israeli forces and the immediate start of a comprehensive reconstruction process under the supervision of a Palestinian “national technocratic body”.
Israel, for its part, wants Hamas to disarm, which the group rejects.
U.S. officials suggest they want to initially focus talks on a halt to the fighting and the logistics of how the Israeli hostages in Gaza and Palestinian detainees in Israel would be freed.
In the absence of a ceasefire, Israel has pressed on with its offensive in Gaza, increasing its international isolation.
Global outrage has mounted against Israel’s assault, which has internally displaced nearly Gaza’s entire population and set off a starvation crisis. Multiple rights experts, scholars and a U.N. inquiry say it amounts to genocide. Israel calls its actions self-defense after the 2023 Hamas attack.
According to Gaza authorities, some 67,000 people have been killed in Israel’s assault. It followed the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, when 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken to Gaza as hostages, according to Israel’s tallies.
(Jana Choukeir and Tala Ramadan reported from Dubai and Nidal al-Mughrabi from Cairo and Maayan Lubell in JerusalemWriting by Michael GeorgyEditing by Peter Graff)
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