JERUSALEM/CAIRO — Israelis and Palestinians are signaling new efforts to forge a cease-fire deal, even a limited one, for the first time in a year that would pause the fighting in Gaza and return to Israel some of the hostages still held in the Palestinian enclave.

Israel Defense Minister Israel Katz told his US counterpart Lloyd Austin III in a phone call on Wednesday there was now a chance for a new deal that would allow the return of all the hostages, including US citizens, Mr. Katz’s office said.

A Western diplomat in the region, however, said a deal was taking shape but it would likely be limited in scope, involving the release of only a handful of hostages and a short pause in hostilities.

Such a truce and release would be only the second since the start of the war in October 2023.

The guarded optimism emerges as US President Joseph R. Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan heads to Israel for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday and then to Egypt and Qatar, co-mediators with the US on a deal.

Separately, President-elect Donald J.  Trump has demanded that militants of the Palestinian Hamas group release the hostages held in Gaza before he takes over from Mr. Biden on Jan. 20. Otherwise, Mr. Trump has said, there will be “hell to pay.”

Mr. Trump’s designated hostage envoy Adam Boehler has said he too is involved, having spoken already to Mr. Biden and to Mr. Netanyahu. Israel says 100 hostages remain captive in Gaza. Seven are believed to be US citizens.

Citing Mr. Trump’s threat of “hell to pay,” Mr. Boehler told Israel’s Channel 13 news last week: “I would appeal to those people that have taken hostages: Make your best deal now. Make it now because every day that passes, it is going to get harder and harder and more Hamas lives will be lost.”

Although Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are working separately, their efforts overlap and both stand to gain from a deal. A US official said Mr. Trump’s public statements about the need for a swift ceasefire “have not been harmful.”

The official said the priority is to get the hostages home, whether it is at the end of the Biden term or the start of the Trump term.

Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s designated Middle East envoy, met separately in late November with Mr. Netanyahu and Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said a source briefed on the talks.

At least 35 Palestinians were killed early on Thursday in Israeli bombings of various areas in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

In the occupied West Bank overnight, a suspected Palestinian shooting attack on an Israeli bus killed a child around the age of 12, Israeli emergency services said.

TIMING IS APT FOR NETANYAHU
The timing for a deal may never have been better politically for Mr. Netanyahu.

The prime minister told reporters on Monday that Hamas’ increasing isolation following the collapse of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s rule opened the door to a possible hostage deal even if it was too early to claim success.

Israel’s military chief and the head of the Shin Bet internal security service were in Cairo on Tuesday to discuss post-war Gaza border crossings and administration, according to three Israeli security sources.

The public optimism of Israeli leaders over the past week has matched the general tone in internal discussions behind closed doors, according to an Israeli official.

For Mr. Netanyahu, concessions would be far easier now with Israel having reestablished its reputation as the most powerful Middle East force and its Iran-backed enemies in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria now posing less of a threat.

Mr. Netanyahu’s once-fragile coalition has been strengthened by the addition of Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and his more centrist faction. Mr. Netanyahu, having achieved a ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon, can complete the picture with the return of the hostages in a deal with Hamas.

Over the past year, some of the far-right ministers in his cabinet had voiced objections, even threatening to bring down the government, should the war in Gaza end. But with Israel’s enemies weakened, and his coalition strengthened, Mr. Netanyahu is far less vulnerable politically.

Mr. Sa’ar said on Monday that Israel was now more optimistic about a possible hostage deal amid reports Hamas had asked other Gaza factions to help it compile a list of Israeli and foreign hostages in their custody, whether dead or alive.

A Palestinian official close to the talks and familiar with the positions of all the parties involved described what he called “a fever of negotiations” with ideas emerging on all sides, including among mediators in Egypt and Qatar.

Mr. Trump’s involvement had given the talks a boost, even if the sides have yet to present lists of Palestinian prisoners and hostages to be exchanged or to complete plans for a temporary or phased truce, the Palestinian official said.

He said Hamas was willing to show some flexibility should there be guarantees Israel would not resume the fighting.

It is unclear how the sides can bridge the largest gap that has persisted through numerous rounds of failed negotiations; Hamas demands an end to the war, while Israel says the war will not end before Hamas no longer rules Gaza.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken headed to Jordan and Turkey on Wednesday for talks on Syria, the State Department said. Israel is not in his official itinerary but there is always a possibility he might add the stop. — Reuters

SEOUL — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said he would “fight to the end” on Thursday as his own political party shifted closer to voting with the opposition to impeach him over his short-lived martial law order that threw the US ally into turmoil.

In a lengthy televised address, the embattled leader of Asia’s fourth-largest economy also claimed North Korea had hacked South Korea’s election commission, throwing doubt on his party’s landslide election defeat in April.

Mr. Yoon is hoping his political allies will rally to his support but this appeared less likely after his fiery address, with the leader of his ruling People Power Party (PPP) responding that the time had come for Mr. Yoon to resign or be impeached by parliament.

At least seven members of the party were expected to support a new impeachment motion with two members declaring publicly they will vote in favor. At least eight PPP votes are needed for the two-thirds majority required to impeach Mr. Yoon.

Mr. Yoon said the opposition was “dancing the sword dance of madness” by trying to drag a democratically elected president from power, nine days after his aborted attempt to grant sweeping powers to the military.

“I will fight to the end,” he said. “Whether they impeach me or investigate me, I will face it all squarely.”

His comments were the first since he apologized on Saturday and promised to leave his fate in the hands of his party.

The defiant reversal to now fight raised the possibility Mr. Yoon, a career prosecutor and a legal expert, may have decided to take his chances to court, hoping to make a dramatic comeback.

That may prove to be an “utter mistake” and the result of the president listening to the advice of wrong people, Shin Yul, a Myongji University political science professor said.

“It appears that he just doesn’t want to step down and is trying to hang in there as he still thinks he did the right thing,” Mr. Shin said.

Mr. Yoon faces a second impeachment vote in parliament expected on Saturday, a week after the first one failed because most of the ruling PPP boycotted the proceedings.

A vote to impeach would send the case to the Constitutional Court, which has up to six months to decide whether to remove Mr. Yoon from office or reinstate him.

In the latest sign that Mr. Yoon is losing his grip on power, PPP leader Han Dong-hoon told a meeting of party members on Thursday that they should join the opposition to impeach the president.

Even so, the party remains deeply divided and Mr. Yoon continues to have the backing of some PPP lawmakers.

Underscoring the divisions, the party chose a member close to the president as its floor leader by a majority vote on Thursday. Kweon Seong-dong said after his selection the party’s official policy remains opposing the impeachment.

The president is separately under criminal investigation for alleged insurrection over the Dec. 3 martial law declaration, which he rescinded hours later, sparking the biggest political crisis in South Korea in decades.

In comments that echoed his justification for declaring emergency rule in the first place, Mr. Yoon said the “criminal groups” that have paralyzed state affairs and disrupted the rule of law must be stopped at all costs from taking over government.

He was referring to the opposition Democratic Party which has blocked some of his proposals and raised allegations of government wrongdoing, but he gave no evidence of criminal activity.

A member of the Democratic Party leadership, Kim Min-seok, said Mr. Yoon’s address was a “display of extreme delusion” and called on members of the president’s ruling party to vote to impeach him.

NORTH KOREAN HACK
Mr. Yoon spoke at length about an alleged hack by communist-ruled North Korea into the National Election Commission (NEC) last year, again without citing evidence.

He said the attack was detected by the National Intelligence Service but the commission, an independent agency, refused to cooperate fully in an investigation and inspection of its system.

The hack cast doubt on the integrity of the April 2024 election, which his party lost in a landslide, and led him to declare martial law, he added.

The commission said by raising the suspicion of election irregularities, Mr. Yoon was committing a “self-defeating act against an election oversight system that elected himself as president.”

The NEC said it had consulted with the spy agency last year to address “security vulnerabilities” but there were no signs a hack by North Korea compromised the election system.

Mr. Yoon won the presidency in March 2022 by the narrowest margin in South Korea’s democratic history.

Troops entered the election commission’s computer server room after Mr. Yoon’s martial law declaration, officials said and closed-circuit TV footage showed, but it was not clear if they removed any equipment.

Mr. Yoon’s party suffered a crushing defeat in the April election, allowing the Democratic Party to have overwhelming control of the single-chamber assembly.

Even so, the opposition still needs eight PPP members to vote with them for the president to be impeached.

Mr. Yoon defended his decision to declare martial law as a “symbolic” move intended to expose an opposition plot to “completely destroy the country” and collapse the alliance with the United States. — Reuters