The United States hailed a "promising start" to Gaza cease-fire talks Thursday, as pressure mounted for a deal to halt the spread of a war that the Hamas-run territory's health ministry said has killed 40,005.
The conflict sparked by Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel has devastated Gaza, displaced nearly all of its population at least once and triggered a towering humanitarian crisis.
Talks involving CIA director William Burns opened in the Qatari capital Doha, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
"Today is a promising start," Kirby told reporters in Washington, adding: "There remains a lot of work to do."
The talks were expected to continue on Friday, he said.
Hamas official Osama Hamdan said the movement did not take part in Thursday's meeting but stood ready to join the indirect negotiations if they produced new commitments from Israel.
The Palestinian group has demanded the implementation of a truce plan laid out in late May by President Joe Biden.
"If the mediators succeed in forcing the (Israeli) occupation to agree, we would, but so far there's nothing new," Hamdan told AFP.
He said Hamas would not take part in protracted negotiations that "give (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu more time to kill the Palestinian people".
So far, there has been only one truce in November, when Gaza militants released 105 hostages seized in the October 7 attack, the Israelis among them in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
The latest diplomatic push comes as the health ministry in Gaza said the death toll in the besieged Palestinian territory had surpassed 40,000 -- which UN chief Antonio Guterres said was "yet another reason" why a ceasefire was needed now.
"Given the... disturbing number of people who remain unaccounted for, who may be trapped or dead under the rubble, this number may, if anything, be an undercount," his spokesman Farhan Haq said.
"This is yet another reason why we need to have a ceasefire now, as well as the release of all hostages and unimpeded humanitarian assistance."
The Gaza health ministry, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant casualties, said the tally included 40 deaths in the previous 24 hours.
The Israeli military said it had killed "more than 17,000" Palestinian militants in Gaza since the war began.
- 'Time is now' -
British foreign minister David Lammy and his French counterpart Stephane Sejourne are to discuss the truce talks with Israel's top diplomat Israel Katz on Friday.
In Beirut on Wednesday, visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein said a deal in Gaza "would also help enable a diplomatic resolution here in Lebanon and that would prevent an outbreak of a wider war".
"We have to take advantage of this window for diplomatic action and diplomatic solutions. That time is now," he added.
Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel triggered the war and resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Militants also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Mediation efforts have repeatedly stalled since the week-long truce in November.
Hamas officials, some analysts and critics in Israel have said Netanyahu has sought to prolong the war for political gain.
Israeli media this week quoted Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as privately telling a parliamentary committee that a hostage release deal "is stalling... in part because of Israel".
Netanyahu's office accused Gallant of adopting an "anti-Israel narrative" and said Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is "the only obstacle to a hostage deal".
- Bloodied children -
The latest mediation push follows the July 31 killing of Sinwar's predecessor, Hamas political leader and truce negotiator Ismail Haniyeh. His killing during a visit to Tehran sent fears of a wider conflagration soaring.
Iran and its regional allies blamed Israel and vowed retaliation. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack.
Western leaders have urged Tehran to avoid hitting Israel over Haniyeh's killing, which came hours after an Israeli strike in Beirut killed Hezbollah's military commander.
Fallout from the conflict has drawn in Iran-aligned groups from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria.
More than 370 Hezbollah members have been killed in 10 months of near daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces, according to an AFP tally, more than the Iran-backed movement lost in the 2006 war with Israel.
On the Israeli side, 22 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, including in the annexed Golan Heights, according to military figures.
In Gaza, where the war has destroyed much of the territory's housing and other infrastructure, relatively few deaths were reported on Thursday.
In the deadliest bombardment, emergency services said air strikes killed five people in Gaza City.
Israel's military said troops had killed about 20 militants in Rafah, southern Gaza.
On Wednesday, dead and wounded including bloodied children arrived at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis after an Israeli strike.
"I was not pro-Hamas but now I support them and I want to fight," one grieving man shouted.