Talks to solidify a Gaza truce between Israel and Hamas are underway, with "technical meetings" between the parties, Qatar's foreign ministry said Tuesday.
"The technical meetings are still happening between both sides," ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said, referring to meetings with lower-level officials on the details of an agreement. "There are no principal meetings taking place at the moment."
Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been engaged in months of talks between Israel and Hamas that have failed to end the devastating conflict in Gaza.
Al-Ansari said there were "a lot of issues that are being discussed" in the ongoing meetings, but declined to go into details "to protect the integrity of the negotiations."
Hamas said at the end of last week that indirect negotiations in Doha had resumed, while Israel said it had authorized negotiators to continue the talks in the Qatari capital.
A previous round of mediation in December ended with both sides blaming the other for the impasse, with Hamas accusing Israel of setting "new conditions" and Israel accusing Hamas of throwing up "obstacles" to a deal.
In December, the Gulf emirate expressed optimism that "momentum" was returning to the talks following Donald Trump's election victory in the United States.
A month earlier, Doha had said it was putting its mediation on hold, and that it would resume when Hamas and Israel showed "willingness and seriousness."
The little progress in cease-fire talks comes despite continued Israeli violence in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Israeli forces killed at least three Palestinians in stepped-up operations across the occupied West Bank on Tuesday following the killing of three Israelis near a Jewish settlement.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said an 18-year-old was killed overnight in an Israeli airstrike in Tamun, a town northeast of Nablus city, while a 40-year-old was shot dead in the nearby village of Taluza.
The Israeli military said that after clashes in the Tamun area, its warplanes struck and killed two people. The official Palestinian news agency WAFA also reported a second Palestinian killed in a strike in Tamun.
The Israeli military said a third individual was killed in a firefight in Taluza and several were arrested in various incidents. Hamas' armed al-Qassam Brigades confirmed the man killed in Taluza was one of its members.
WAFA meanwhile reported revenge attacks by Jewish settlers, who it said had set fire to a vehicle overnight and attacked a Palestinian village.
Violence in the West Bank has intensified in parallel with Israel's 15-month genocidal war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, with increased Israeli military raids and airstrikes and a rise in attacks by Jewish settlers.
Hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis have been killed.
Meanwhile, the Health Ministry in Gaza said Tuesday that at least 31 people were killed in the Palestinian territory in the past 24 hours, taking the overall death toll to 45,885 as the war entered its 16th month.
The ministry also said in a statement that at least 109,196 people had been wounded in the war, triggered by the Palestinian group's Oct. 7, 2023 incursion.
