TEL AVIV — Israeli Mossad Director David Barnea held top-level meetings in Qatar on Thursday in a concerted bid to move toward a cease fire and hostage deal with Hamas and thereby stave off a controversial government plan to take full control of the Gaza Strip. 

Two political sources speaking to Al-Monitor on the condition of anonymity said that contrary to reports that the Israeli government had shifted course and was now pushing for an all-or-nothing cease-fire that would also free all 20 living hostages and the remains of 30 others, Barnea was seeking to advance a partial deal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then said in a statement this week, "As part of the discussion on our terms — the release of all the hostages, both the living and the dead — we are at the stage of a single deal; there is no going back."

Barnea's approach is based on an outline proposed in March by US envoy Steve Witkoff for a 60-day cease-fire understood to include the freeing of 10 living Israeli hostages and release of the remains of 15 others, as well as of hundreds of Palestinian imprisoned in Israel, a partial withdrawal from Gaza by Israeli troops, and an expansion of humanitarian aid. During the cease-fire, Israel and Hamas would negotiate the second phase of the deal, namely, ending the war. This is the outline that Barnea discussed in Doha with Qatari Prime Minister Abdul Rahman Al Thani.

Qatari versus Egyptian mediation