On October 6, 2025, negotiations between Israel and Hamas opened in Egypt even as Israeli attacks continued to kill Palestinians in Gaza. Al Jazeera reported that at least 10 people were killed on Monday, including three aid seekers, bringing the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks since Friday to 104. The talks in Sharm el-Sheikh were meant to prepare the ground for the release of detainees and prisoners under President Donald Trump’s proposal to end the war.
The continuing deaths underlined how little of a ceasefire existed on the ground. Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian said on Sunday that the military would continue to act for defensive purposes and that no ceasefire was in place. Trump, meanwhile, pressed both sides to move quickly, saying the first phase of talks should be finished within the week and that there was no time to waste.
The proposed deal includes a hostage exchange, a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the eventual demilitarisation of the enclave, but Al Jazeera said many details remained unclear. Israel wants all captives released within 72 hours, while Hamas and mediators must still resolve the mechanics of withdrawal, governance and security. The report said the Palestinian official close to the talks expected more discussions after the first session ended late on Monday.
The scale of the wider war hung over the meeting. Al Jazeera said the bombardment of Gaza had now killed at least 67,160 people and wounded 169,679, pushing the two million residents of the enclave towards starvation. Against that backdrop, even small signs of progress mattered, but they did not erase the continuing death toll or the political fragility of the negotiations.
The article also showed how deeply the proposed settlement depends on trust that does not yet exist. Trump said Hamas had responded positively, while Israeli officials still wanted clarity on disarmament, withdrawal lines and the future of Gaza’s government. The result is a negotiation in which every side says it wants speed, but each critical detail still has the power to collapse the talks before any final agreement is reached.
The negotiations in Egypt were indirect, with Egyptian and Qatari mediators helping both sides work through the mechanics of prisoner release, withdrawal and security guarantees. That structure itself showed how little direct trust exists between the parties and how much the process depends on outside brokers to keep it moving.
Trump continued to press for speed, while Israeli officials and Hamas leaders each highlighted different parts of the proposal. The result is a negotiation about more than ending bombardment: it is also about Hamas’s future, Gaza’s governance and the scale of the reconstruction effort, all of which could still pull the talks apart.
Because the talks in Egypt are indirect, every detail must pass through mediators before it can become agreement. That makes the process slow, vulnerable to mistrust and easy to derail, especially while fighting continues and the sides still disagree on the basic shape of Gaza’s future.
So far, the talks remain as much about pace as substance.
