Mossad chief David Barnea flew to Doha on Sunday to discuss attempts to move toward a hostage release deal with CIA Director Bill Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.

According to the Prime Minister’s Office, the officials will discuss “the various possibilities to restart negotiations for the release of hostages from Hamas captivity, based on recent developments.”

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed by IDF troops earlier this month, a development Israeli and Western leaders have described as an “opportunity” to make progress on a deal that would see the release of some or all the hostages held in Gaza.

Hamas will not be involved in this round of meetings, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel, but could potentially join a subsequent round, with mediators shuttling between the terror group and Israeli negotiators.

Qatar hosts a number of top Hamas leaders on its territory.

Israel is exploring the possibility of a small deal designed to kick-start talks with Hamas about a comprehensive deal, said the official, and to understand Hamas decision-making after Sinwar’s death.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said in a Cairo press conference on Sunday that his country had proposed a two-day ceasefire in Gaza to exchange four Israeli hostages for some Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas will present negotiators with a comprehensive deal for an immediate end to the war and a withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip, and the exchange of a certain number of Palestinian detainees in return for the release of all Israeli hostages at once, Hamas officials told the Saudi channel Asharq News.

The offer is expected to be submitted following the meeting in Doha on Sunday.

Israeli officials have been evaluating different options for a deal, including a proposal that was presented in a security cabinet meeting last week to offer Hamas a two-week ceasefire in exchange for the release of five hostages, but the terror group appears to prefer an immediate end to the conflict.

The unnamed Hamas source told Asharq that “we will listen to the offers [of the negotiators], but for our part, we prefer a comprehensive deal that takes place in one stage and ends the war once and for all, in return for a prisoner exchange under which all Israeli captives are released in exchange for an agreed number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.”

Earlier in the day, Barnea attended the national ceremony honoring the Israeli forces who have fallen since the Hamas onslaught on October 7 last year.

In Egypt last week, according to The Wall Street Journal, Barnea offered Hamas leaders safe passage out of the Gaza Strip if they disarmed and freed the 101 hostages they are holding.

Hamas “swiftly” rebuffed the proposal, with Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas’s deputy leader for Gaza, saying the offer showed Israel misunderstood the terror group and risked extending the war for months or years, according to the report.

Although Egypt will not send a delegation to the talks, it has been closely involved in efforts to get the negotiating process up and running again. In addition to meeting with Barnea, it hosted a Hamas delegation last week to discuss the group’s expectations for a potential deal.

Barnea’s meeting with newly appointed Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Rashad was productive, Ynet reported, and the two discussed a new proposal for a hostage release and ceasefire deal, as well as the importance of maintaining and strengthening security cooperation.

Rashad’s meeting with Barnea followed talks earlier in the week with Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar.

Before Sinwar was killed, Israel and Hamas clashed in indirect negotiations over whether a ceasefire would constitute an end to the war; over the numbers and identities of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners to be freed; over whether Israel would maintain control over the Gaza-Egypt border; over whether Israel would allow a return of residents to north Gaza; and more.

It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF. Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.

Senior Israeli officials pledged during the state ceremonies Sunday to do all they could to bring the hostages home.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the return of living and dead hostages is a “holy mission.”

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stressed that not every goal can be achieved through military force.

“Returning the hostages to their homes demands painful compromises,” said Gallant. “We must do this for the hostages, for their families, for the soldiers who fell for this goal, for the IDF’s legacy, and in the name of the Jewish and national ethos.”

President Isaac Herzog called for seizing the opportunity to bring home hostages held in the Gaza Strip after the slaying of Sinwar, describing it as the “supreme task” facing the country.

On Friday, the Palestinian Al-Quds newspaper published three documents allegedly handwritten by Sinwar, in which he laid out instructions for the captors of hostages. The report did not say when the documents were from.

The first document stresses the obligation to “take care of the lives of the enemy’s prisoners and keep them safe, since they are an important bargaining chip” to free Palestinian security prisoners. The document also included Quranic verses on the matter of hostage-taking, Al-Quds reported.

The second document includes data on 112 unnamed hostages held in three areas: Gaza City (14 hostages), central Gaza (25 hostages), and southern Gaza’s Rafah (51 hostages). A fourth group of 22 hostages is listed without a location.

The hostages in each location are broken down into different categories according to their gender, age — above or below 60, or young — and whether they are civilians or soldiers.

The document also notes that one Bedouin hostage was held in Gaza City, and four in Rafah, among them a 55-year-old man. The four are presumed to be Youssef Ziyadne and his three children, two of whom were released in a week-long ceasefire last November.

The third document includes a list of 11 female hostages who were released early on in the war, most of them during the November truce. The 11 hostages are listed with their names, ages, and whether they held foreign citizenship.