Gaza ceasefire talks appear to stall days before Ramadan

Negotiations aimed at brokering a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war appear to have stalled, days before an unofficial deadline of the beginning of Ramadan.

Two days of talks between Hamas and international mediators broke up in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, without any significant breakthroughs, Palestinian officials said, after Israel declined to send a delegation to the latest round of negotiations.

“[Benjamin] Netanyahu doesn’t want to reach an agreement” and “the ball now is in the Americans’ court” to press the Israeli prime minister to come back to the table, Basem Naim, the head of Hamas’s political division in Gaza, told reporters in text messages.

Israel, however, did not send a delegation to the second day of talks in Cairo as hoped, demanding that Hamas present a list of 40 elderly, sick and female hostages who would be the first to be released as part of a truce that would initially last six weeks, beginning with the month of Ramadan.

Hamas has demanded that large-scale humanitarian aid should be allowed into Gaza, and that Palestinians displaced from their homes in the north of the coastal territory be allowed to return