President-elect Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said on Tuesday he hopes to have good things to report about hostages held by Hamas in Gaza by the time Trump is sworn in as U.S. president on Jan.

The body was found as international mediators kept up a push for a ceasefire and hostage release deal The Israeli military said Wednesday that its troops recovered the body of a hostage in Gaza and brought it back to Israel following a "complex and difficult operation".

Israel presented a new proposal through mediators in Doha, demanding the release of all Israeli hostages in exchange for an agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners, a Hamas official told EFE on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorised Israeli negotiators to continue talks in Doha on a hostage release, his office said Thursday, after Israel and Hamas traded blame for their slow progress.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expresses confidence in a near-term Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange.

Serious differences on key issues including the release of hostages on humanitarian grounds and control over the Philadelphi Corridor remain, i24NEWS understands

Israel said Monday that Hamas had not yet provided the status of 34 hostages the group declared it was ready to release in the first phase of a potential exchange deal.

Donald Trump threatened to unleash “hell” if the Hamas hostages are not released soon, as Biden officials note “constructive” discussions with the transition team.

Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said on Tuesday he hopes to have good things to say about hostages held by Hamas in Gaza by Inauguration Day.

Abandoned by its allies, resented by Gazans and still under attack from Israel, losing its comfortable outpost in Doha may be the least of Hamas’s problems.

The vast majority of Gaza's pre-war population of 2.2 million has been displaced at least once since the fighting began. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Hamas-run Gaza announced that 46,006 people have been killed in Gaza since the war with Israel began on Oct. 7, 2023. The number of injured rose to 109,378, officials said Thursday morning.