Overview

• The talks in Sharm el‑Sheikh expanded with US envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Israel's Ron Dermer, Turkey's intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin, and Qatar's Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani arriving to press for progress.
• Negotiation sources report no substantive movement so far, with Hamas seeking guarantees that Israeli attacks will stop and a full war end before any exchange, while Israel has offered no such commitments as strikes continue.
• The 20‑point framework pairs a weapons ceasefire and phased Israeli withdrawal with the release of Hamas‑held hostages and Gaza's disarmament, alongside a major scale‑up of UN‑run humanitarian aid and reconstruction.
• Around 48 hostages are believed to remain in Gaza and Israeli assessments suggest only about 20 may be alive, prompting guarded optimism from families and German ambassador Steffen Seibert that a deal could finally free them.
• Prisoner lists remain contentious, with reports that Hamas seeks releases such as Marwan Barghouti, as Germany's foreign minister Johann Wadephul engages in Egypt and police curb banned pro‑Palestine rallies in Berlin and an incident‑marred counter‑protest in Osnabrück.