TEL AVIV: Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that a negotiating team would be sent this week for new talks on a deal to free captives held by Palestinians in Gaza.
Netanyahu said the team would leave on Thursday -- the day after he gives a speech to the United States Congress -- but he did not say where they would go.
Qatar and Egypt, with US support, have been mediating indirect talks between Israel and Palestinian groups, which hold the captives and have been at war with Israel for more than nine months.
International mediators have been trying for months to seal an accord between Israel and Hamas movement. A deal would involve a six-week ceasefire during which some captives seized by groups would be exchanged for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today held an in-depth discussion on the issue of the hostages with the negotiation team and senior security officials," said a brief statement released by his office.
Meanwhile, Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum announced on Monday that two captives held in Gaza had died.
The deaths of Yagev Buchshtab, 35, and Alex Dancyg, 76, who were abducted during the October 7 attack, are a "stark reminder of the urgency" to bring the captives home, the forum said in a statement. It did not provide any information on how they had died.
"Their bodies are being held by the Hamas terror organisation," the Israeli military said in a separate statement. "The circumstances of their death in Hamas captivity are being examined by all the professional authorities."
Demonstrators in Israel, who have taken to the streets sometimes in the tens of thousands to demand new elections and a captives-release deal, accuse Netanyahu of prolonging the war. — AFP
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