'It appears that Hamas has softened some of their positions'

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00:00 We saw today that the leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was in Qatar meeting there with top

00:07 officials. Israel also sent a delegation to Qatar today. And the talks that made some progress over

00:16 the weekend, led by the United States in Paris, are continuing to unfold now in Qatar.

00:26 There has been progress. We can't say that all the gaps have been closed. It appears that Hamas

00:31 has softened some of their positions. Israel is still waiting for Hamas's official response to

00:38 this. But it looks like they've lowered the number of Palestinian prisoners or jailed Palestinians

00:45 they're demanding for each Israeli hostage. And Israel has also shown some flexibility

00:51 instead of a three to one ratio, which we saw in the last prisoner exchange that happened with the

01:00 hostage deal and the ceasefire back in November, three Palestinians for every one Israeli hostage.

01:06 Israel now willing to bump that number up to 10, 20, 30. Israel's willing, it appears,

01:16 to release hundreds of Palestinians in exchange for 40 Israelis in this first group that would

01:23 come out during a six week ceasefire. But again, there are still outstanding issues.

01:28 Where is the Israeli army going to deploy to? Will Hamas be okay with Israel moving to just

01:34 out of the major cities and retreating to a border, a security buffer? Will Hamas accept

01:42 certain language that doesn't necessarily talk about ending the war? That's a big one.

01:47 So there's still gaps. One of the major challenges is that Hamas is unwilling still to relinquish,

01:56 give up power over the Gaza Strip somewhere. Sinwar is still harboring a fantasy that he will

02:03 be able to still be in control of the Gaza Strip after this war.

02:07 Clearly Israel and the United States do not think that's remotely possible.

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