Gaza ceasefire talks are 90% complete, a Palestinian official told the BBC

Talks on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas are 90% complete, but key issues remain to be resolved, a senior Palestinian official involved in the talks told the BBC.

One of the main sticking points is the continued Israeli military presence in the Philadelphia Corridor, a strategically important strip of land in southern Gaza along the border with Egypt.

A Palestinian official shared details of ongoing discussions in Doha, which include the potential creation of a buffer zone several kilometers wide along Israel’s border with Gaza.

Israel will maintain a military presence in the area, the official said.

If these issues are resolved, a three-phase ceasefire could be agreed within days, they added.

The agreement calls for an exchange of 20 Palestinian prisoners for every female soldier released in the first of three phases of the ceasefire.

The names of the prisoners have not yet been agreed, but they will be chosen from about 400 names serving 25 years or more in prison in Israel.

They are not believed to include senior Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, whose release Israel is expected to veto.

The Israeli hostages will be released in stages as it is believed that Hamas still needs to find some of the missing hostages.

Of the 96 hostages still in Gaza, Israel believes 62 are alive.

Gaza civilians will be able to return to the north under an Egyptian/Qatar-supervised system that will bring about 500 aid trucks a day to the strip, the official said.

In the final phase of the three-phase plan to end the 14-month war, Gaza will be overseen by a committee of technocrats from the enclave who will have no previous political affiliations but will have the support of all Palestinian factions.

In recent weeks, the US, Qatar and Egypt have renewed their mediation efforts and signaled a greater willingness on both sides to strike a deal.

A round of talks in mid-October failed to produce an agreement, as Hamas rejected a proposal for a short-term ceasefire.

Hamas and two other Palestinian armed groups said reaching a ceasefire agreement in Gaza was “closer than ever before” only if Israel “stopped imposing new conditions”.

In a Telegram statement on Saturday, the group said it held a meeting in Cairo on Friday about ongoing negotiations with representatives of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

The Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas, which ruled Gaza, launched an unprecedented cross-border attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. About 1200 people were killed and 251 people were kidnapped.

More than 100 hostages have been released through negotiations or rescue operations by the Israeli military.