Mossad chief meets Qatari PM after three hostages killed by Israel
The initial refusal by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to revive hostage negotiations was widely criticised, and has since been backtracked.
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Israel's war cabinet under Benjamin Netanyahu had previously refused to allow David Barnea, the head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, to restart negotiations with Qatari mediators [Photo by GIL COHEN-MAGEN/AFP via Getty Images]
The chief of Israel's Mossad, the country's spy agency, met the Prime Minister of Qatar on Friday in a bid to resume hostage negotiations following the recovery of multiple hostages killed in Gaza.
David Barnea, who heads Mossad, met Qatar's Mohammad bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Europe, according to Axios reporter Barak Ravid, with the two discussing the resumption of hostage negotiations over the remaining 129 hostages still in Gaza.
According to one unnamed source, the meeting was "just a beginning" for further talks, stressing that the process will be "long, difficult and complicated," with the heads of the CIA and Egyptian intelligence also being briefed on the meeting.
According to Axios, Qatari officials had previously reached out to Israel in a bid to resume the negotiations over the release of remaining female hostages alongside elderly men, those with medical conditions and those wounded a week prior.
However, this proposal was rejected by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli war cabinet, with the backlash resulting in a reversal of the decision.
The move to resume hostage negotiations comes after Israel received the bodies of six hostages who had been killed in Gaza on Friday, with three being killed by the Israeli army in Gaza City.
An Israeli official said that three of the hostages, Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz and Samer El-Talalqa, were killed by Israeli forces whilst walking towards the soldiers waving a white flag.
Israel has yet to say how the other three hostages, French-Israeli citizen Elia Toledano and soldiers Nick Beizer and Ron Sherman, whose bodies were received prior to the incident, were killed.
Following the announcement, protests erupted outside the Israeli Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv led by family members of the hostages.
“Their time is running out! Bring them home now! There is no victory until every last hostage is released!”- desperate spontaneous protest by hostage families outside in Tel Aviv after news that Israeli army accidentally killed 3 hostages in #Gaza
— sebastian usher (@sebusher) December 15, 2023
pic.twitter.com/3WdlwgMcRV
Israel's military campaign in Gaza, which began following a Hamas attack on southern Israel on 7 October that killed at least 1,139 Israelis and 250 being taken hostage, has killed 18,800 people, including 8,000 children.
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