Gaza talks to continue in Doha

By Nathan Morley

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly approved that an Israeli delegation can continue talks in Doha, Qatar.

The AFP news agency reports that the talks are about the release of hostages, whilst Reuters notes that the talks will be about a possible ceasefire.

Israel and Hamas have in recent days accused each other of delaying negotiations for an agreement.

The delegation consists of representatives of the various Israeli security services. These are not direct negotiations, but indirect talks between Israel and Hamas with Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States as intermediaries.

Elsewhere, the population of the Gaza Strip has shrunk by around 6 percent since the war began, according to the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).

Around 100,000 residents have left the enclave, while over 55,000 are believed to have died.

This means that the population of Gaza has dropped to around 2.1 million during the almost 15-month-long war. 

The Israeli Foreign Ministry rejects the PCBS figures, saying they are ‘fabricated, inflated and manipulated to put Israel in a bad light.’

In other regional developments, a number of senior members of the new Syrian regime arrived in Saudi Arabia on what is their first official visit abroad.

The delegation includes Foreign Minister, Defense Minister and Intelligence Chief, the official Saudi news agency Sana reported.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 528,500 people were killed in the civil war in Syria.

The figure includes thousands who were only recently confirmed dead.