AMN / WEB DESK
Israel’s war cabinet Saturday agreed to send negotiators to Qatar to continue talks toward a cease-fire and the return of about 130 hostages held in Gaza, officials and local media said.
The Israeli delegates returned Saturday from the peace talks in Paris where they met on Friday with Qatari, Egyptian and U.S. mediators who had helped put together the November cease-fire during which scores of Hamas’ captives were freed in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners.
The war cabinet met on Saturday to hear an update on the negotiations, national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said.
According to Media reports Palestinian representatives who have seen the plan have rejected it. Parts of the plan also run counter to what Washington has envisioned for the region, which is a two-state solution involving an independent Palestinian state.
Thousands of people held a vigil for the hostages on Saturday in Tel Aviv, a short distance from an anti-government protest where police reported five arrests for disorderly conduct.
On Friday, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said a 2-month-old baby died of malnutrition outside the city of Jabalia in northern Gaza.
The United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF, has warned that the alarming lack of food and surging malnutrition and disease could lead to an explosion in child deaths in Gaza.
On February 19, UNICEF estimated that one in six children younger than two in Gaza was acutely malnourished.