Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majid Al-Ansari announced on Tuesday the resumption of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas in Doha to reach a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange deal, indicating that Monday’s meeting carried Tel Aviv’s response to Hamas’ proposal.

Earlier Tuesday, Mossad chief David Barnea returned to Israel from Doha, after a visit that lasted hours during which he held talks with Egyptian and Qatari mediators about reaching a deal with Hamas, while the Israeli technical team remained in Qatar.

Al-Ansari said in a weekly press conference in which he discussed the latest developments, that negotiations had been resumed in Doha, and that the meeting held yesterday (Monday) carried the Israeli response to the Hamas proposal.

He added: "We moved to technical meetings. The head of the Mossad left Doha, but the Israeli technical team is still meeting."

The Qatari spokesman warned of the consequences of Israel launching a ground attack on the city of Rafah (south), which is crowded with displaced people, considering that "any Israeli attack on Rafah will negatively affect reaching an agreement."

On Tuesday, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry accused Israel of starting its “aggression” against the city of Rafah, “without announcing the move or waiting for anyone’s permission,” after several neighborhoods and homes in the city were exposed to Israeli bombing on Monday evening, resulting in deaths and injuries.

On the other hand, Al-Ansari considered that the attack on journalists at Al-Shifa Hospital, west of Gaza City, “can only be understood in the context of covering up other crimes taking place in the vicinity of the hospital.”

Since yesterday, the Israeli army has continued a military operation in Gaza City, which included storming Al-Shifa Hospital, despite the presence of thousands of sick, wounded and displaced persons inside it, as well as about 70,000 Palestinians residing in the surrounding areas.

This is the second time that Israeli forces have stormed the hospital since the beginning of the war on October 7, 2023. They stormed it on November 16 after besieging it for a week and destroying its courtyards and parts of its buildings and medical equipment, in addition to the electricity generator.

The Israeli war left tens of thousands of civilian victims, most of them children and women, massive destruction and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, which led to Israel appearing for the first time since its establishment in 1948, before the International Court of Justice on charges of committing “genocide.”