Middle East, from Netanyahu’s office “cautious optimism” on the agreement. Hamas slows down –

Hours after international mediators expressed optimism at the end of the Doha round of talks, Israeli bombs fell again on Gaza, killing 18 members of the same family, while an Israeli drone strike in southern Lebanon killed a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force. In statements leaked by Hamas to several media outlets, the Palestinian group dampened the enthusiasm expressed on Friday by US President Joe Biden, who had spoken of a deal “never so close”. On the BBC, for example, a senior Hamas official told the mediators that they were “selling illusions”; and on British broadcaster Sky News, Hamas spokesman in Lebanon Ahmad Abdulhadi told the British broadcaster that “there has been no improvement”. Meanwhile, in the evening, “cautious optimism” about an agreement filtered out from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office: “the Israeli negotiating team” “for the hostage agreement briefed the prime minister today on the status of the talks in Doha” and “the team expressed cautious optimism to the prime minister about the possibility of moving forward with the agreement,” he said.

The talks, which aim to secure a ceasefire and release Israeli hostages, are also intended to prevent a regional spread of the conflict. The hope of the international mediators organizing them – namely the US, Qatar and Egypt – as well as international chancelleries, is that a ceasefire and hostage deal will persuade Iran and Hezbollah not to respond to the killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in an attack in Tehran and the killing of the Lebanese group’s top commander Fouad Shukur in an Israeli air strike in Beirut, respectively. Asked whether Iran would continue to avoid retaliation against Israel now that the ceasefire talks in Gaza have been extended, Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York said: “We hope so.” Italy, along with the UK, France and Germany, expressed support for the truce efforts in a joint statement. “We cannot waste time: we are working together with all the countries in the region to give” the Middle East “prospects of stability and peace”, declared Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani. In the joint declaration that he also signed, as well as those of his counterparts, “all parties are urged to continue to engage in a positive and flexible manner in this process” and “the importance of avoiding any escalation in the region that could undermine the prospects for peace” is stressed because “the stakes are too high”.

“We welcome the fact that technical work will continue in the coming days, including on humanitarian provisions and specific arrangements related to hostages and detainees, and that senior officials will meet again before the end of next week with the aim of concluding the agreement,” the four ministers said. This refers to the fact that, at the end of the Doha talks, where the US put on the table a ‘bridge proposal’ aimed at bridging the gaps between the parties, the mediators announced that a new meeting will be held in Cairo “before the end of next week with the aim of concluding the agreement according to the proposed terms”. It also emerged that an Israeli technical team is still on the ground in Doha, trying to work out the details and fill the remaining gaps; and according to Al-Jazeera, a technical team will travel to Cairo in the coming days. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected in Israel over the weekend, where he is due to meet Netanyahu on Monday. The Israeli raid in the Strip that left 18 dead, all from the same family, occurred on Saturday morning in the city of Zawaida, where it hit a house and an adjacent warehouse that was hosting displaced people. Among the victims were a man with his two wives and 11 of his children, aged between 2 and 22.

In Lebanon, in addition to the attack that killed a Hezbollah commander, Israel carried out a raid in the south that killed 10 Syrian citizens, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health. In response, Hezbollah launched a barrage of rockets at the community of Ayelet HaShahar, near Safad, in northern Israel. Meanwhile, in Gaza, there is a polio alert: following the news of the first confirmed case of polio in 25 years, NGOs and international organizations are stepping up calls for an urgent pause in the war so that vaccinations can be increased and a full-blown epidemic can be prevented. “We need a ‘polio pause’ so that vaccines can reach Gaza and be distributed safely before it’s too late. And above all, we need a ceasefire,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine