Officials from Israel’s Mossad foreign intelligence service reportedly told mediating countries that they were “optimistic that the Israeli government will approve a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement.”
Mossad officials have informed countries mediating between Tel Aviv and Hamas that they are “optimistic that the Israeli government and Security Cabinet will approve a cease-fire and prisoner exchange agreement,” The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported, citing unnamed officials.
A statement from the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office yesterday announced that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to send an Israeli negotiating team back next week, after Mossad director David Barnea went to Doha, the capital of Qatar, to discuss a proposed prisoner exchange between Tel Aviv and Hamas.
Israeli media reports that an agreement between the parties could take several weeks.
A Mossad statement on July 3 stated that the mediators in the prisoner exchange negotiations had conveyed Hamas’s response to the cease-fire offer to the Israeli negotiating team.
Netanyahu announced that he has decided to send a delegation from Israel to negotiate a prisoner exchange agreement between Tel Aviv and Hamas.
