Delegations from Hamas and Israel on Monday (October 6, 2025) began indirect talks in Egypt on ending the nearly two-year war in Gaza, with U.S. President Donald Trump judging that the Palestinian militant group was ready to compromise over his proposals for a deal.
Behind closed doors and under tight security, negotiators were to speak through mediators shuttling back and forth, only weeks after Israel tried to kill Hamas’s lead negotiators in a strike on Qatar.
Al-Qahera News earlier said delegations were “discussing preparing ground conditions for the release of detainees and prisoners”.
“Egyptian and Qatari mediators are working with both sides to establish a mechanism” for the release of hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails, it said.
Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House he was “pretty sure” a peace deal was possible.
“I think Hamas has been agreeing to things that are very important… I think we’re going to have a deal.”
Hamas’s lead negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, who survived Israel’s attack on the Palestinian Islamist movement’s leaders in Doha last month, held a meeting with Egyptian intelligence officials ahead of the talks, an Egyptian security source said.
This round of negotiations, launched on the eve of the second anniversary of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war, “may last for several days”, said a Palestinian source close to Hamas’s leadership.
“We expect the negotiations to be difficult and complex, given the occupation’s intentions to continue its war of extermination,” he told AFP.
Mr. Trump, whose envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner are expected in Egypt, has urged negotiators to “move fast” to end the war in Gaza, where Israeli strikes continued on Monday.
At least seven Palestinians were killed in the latest Israeli air strikes, according to Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza’s civil defence agency.
AFP footage showed explosions in the Gaza Strip, with plumes of smoke rising over the skyline, even after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Israel must stop bombing the territory.
