Qatar claims slight progress towards ceasefire in Gaza

Qatar's prime minister says there has been "a bit of progress" in efforts to broker a new ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, but that there was still no "answer for the ultimate question: how to end this war".

It follows his meeting with the head of Israel's spy agency on Thursday.

Speaking in Doha, Turkey's foreign minister Hakan Fidan said that Hamas appeared to be more receptive to negotiating a lasting solution to the war.

After rejecting Israel's latest ceasefire offer more than a week ago, Hamas now seems set on an agreement that would see the release of all the remaining hostages as part of a deal to end hostilities for at least five years.

Hamas has suggested it could consider disarming as part of such a tradeoff, but only if Israel were to pull all its forces out of Gaza. The Israeli government appears to have no intention of doing this.

Israel imposed a complete blockade on Gaza in early March and resumed air and ground attacks later in the month.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says 2,151 Palestinians have been killed since then, including 51 in the 24 hours into Sunday morning.

Fighting between Hamas and Israel has also intensified, with the Israeli military saying an Israeli soldier and a police officer were killed on Friday.

On Thursday, Israel's Mossad spy agency chief David Barnea met with Qatari PM Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Doha.

Sheik Mohammed said that there had been "a bit of progress compared to other meetings, yet we need to find an answer for the ultimate question: how to end this war".

Last week, Hamas rejected an Israeli proposal for a 45-day ceasefire that called for the group's complete disarmament and the release of 10 of the 59 remaining hostages.

Sheikh Mohammed said that they were "trying to find a breakthrough" but added that Israel and Hamas remained at odds on what a ceasefire would entail.

He said Hamas has agreed to hand over all the remaining hostages in an exchange to an end to the war, but that Israel wants the hostages released without offering a vision on an end to the conflict.

"When you don't have a common objective, a common goal, between the parties, I believe the opportunities [to end the war] become very thin," Sheik Mohammed said at a press conference in Doha.

A Hamas delegation held talks with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Saturday which reportedly focused on a ceasefire agreement and addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

A Palestinian official familiar with negotiations told the BBC that Hamas has signalled its readiness to hand over governance of Gaza to any Palestinian entity agreed upon "at the national and regional level". The official said this could be the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) or a newly formed administrative body.

The US has also encouraged the idea of a reformed PA governing Gaza after the war.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has ruled out any role for the PA in Gaza and has said he opposes the formation of a Palestinian state.

On Saturday, PA President Mahmoud Abbas named close confidant Hussein al-Sheikh as his deputy in the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the PLO said.

Abbas, 89, has led the PLO and PA since 2004 but has previously resisted internal reforms, including naming a successor.

The PA's leadership has regularly insisted it is ready to take over running post-war Gaza. But it has been criticised by Palestinians for not speaking out enough or taking effective action.

In a fiery speech during a meeting of the Palestinian Central Council in Ramallah on Wednesday, Abbas lashed out at Hamas, calling the group "sons of dogs" and demanding they release the hostages, disarm and hand over control of Gaza.

Hamas and Abbas's Fatah organisation, which dominates the PA, have been bitterly divided for decades, with their rift ensuring that no unified Palestinian leadership in both the West Bank and Gaza has been able to emerge.

On Sunday, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza announced that the deal toll from the war had risen to at least 52,243 people, after taking account of hundreds of individuals listed as missing whose deaths have now been confirmed.

"An additional 697 martyrs have been added to the cumulative statistics after their data was completed and verified by the committee monitoring missing persons," the health ministry said.

The ministry had earlier denied that it had manipulated death toll figures after media reports highlighted anomalies between the August and October 2024 and March 2025 lists of fatalities.

Last week the UN World Food Programme has warned that all of its food stocks in Gaza have run out as a result of the Israeli blockade.

The UN says Israel is obliged under international law to ensure supplies for the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza. Israel says it is complying with international law and there is no aid shortage.

During the press conference in Doha, Sheikh Mohammed condemned what he described as Israel's "starvation" policy.

The war began on 7 October 2023 when Hamas carried out a cross-border attack, killing around 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's military campaign in response has killed tens of thousands in Gaza and turned most of the strip to rubble.