Bashar Abdo had just returned home last month after four years in the Syrian military when a mob of neighbors and others armed with guns and knives swarmed his family’s front door and accused him of being a thug for the ousted regime.

His sisters and sister-in-law tried to block the crowd as he hid. But people stormed in and found Mr. Abdo, 22, in the kitchen. They stabbed him before dragging him outside, even as his sister, Marwa, clung to him. There, he was shot.

The account, shared by Mr. Abdo’s family, was confirmed by local police in the northwestern city of Idlib. Video footage widely shared on Syrian social media and verified by The New York Times captured the gruesome scene that followed: As Ms. Abdo gripped his lifeless body, neighbors continued to kick him. She begged them to stop, saying he was already dead.

“This is your fate,” one man yelled. Other verified video footage shows a crowd shouting expletives after Mr. Abdo’s body was tied by the neck to a car and dragged through the streets. It is not clear who filmed the video.

Ms. Abdo recalled those moments in an interview with The Times four days later. She vowed revenge, a sign of the growing threat of a cycle of violent retribution in a new Syria.

The country is emerging suddenly and unexpectedly from 13 years of civil war and more than five decades under the Assad dynasty, which maintained its grip on power with fear, torture and mass killings.

The killing of Mr. Abdo underscores the complicated reckoning ahead in Syria, where the wounds remain fresh and anger is close to the surface. Many Syrians want accountability for crimes conducted during the civil war. Others are seeking vengeance.

At least half a million Syrians were killed during the war, most of them in airstrikes carried out by Syrian warplanes and helicopters or in prison under torture or in mass executions, according to Syrian human rights groups. Many people remain unaccounted for.

Officials with the new interim Syrian government, headed by the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, are racing to set up courts and police forces to address decades of grievances. They are urging citizens to forgive and not take matters into their own hands.

Ahmed al-Shara, the head of the rebel alliance that overthrew the Assad government, has said that it will hunt down and prosecute senior figures for crimes that include murdering, wrongly imprisoning, torturing and gassing their own people, but that rank-and-file conscripted soldiers would receive amnesty.

In a recent interview, Mr. al-Shara said that “justice must be sought through the judiciary and the law. Not through individuals.”

“If matters are left that everyone takes revenge, we will have transformed into the law of the jungle,” he said.

Some Syrians have said that while Mr. al-Shara may choose to forgive, they will not. Last week, the mayor of Dumar, a suburb of Damascus, was killed by residents who accused him of informing on people and getting them arrested under the former government, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Mr. Abdo was a soldier — a conscript — in the Syrian military for four years. But his family said he tried to defect twice by failing to return after he was given a few days’ leave. In the end, he spent a month in a military prison for his attempts to desert and was released when the rebels who overthrew the Assad government captured the prison as part of their lightning-fast sweep through the country, several family members said.

At first he was afraid to come home, but when he heard that Mr. al-Shara had said that soldiers like himself would be given amnesty, he felt safe enough, his family said. Not long after he got back, the mob was at the front door.

They accused him of informing on his neighbors, resulting in their being killed or imprisoned. The family said they see many of the killers every day, but they have not confronted them and are seeking to move to another neighborhood.

In response to questions about the killing, the police in Idlib, who are affiliated with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which has ruled the province for years, said in a statement that they were investigating the killing but that the Abdo family was “notorious for working with the regime.”

But the police said that “no one has the right to assault anyone.” No one has been arrested so far.

The family members denied that they had any connections to the regime. They also said that if their brother had worked as an enforcer, he would not have returned home. He was only a foot soldier, they said.

“We vowed that if the government doesn’t get justice, we will get our own justice,” Ms. Abdo, 32, shrieked, tears streaking her face. She slammed her fist into the carpet that she and her sisters had spent days washing to remove her brother’s blood. There was still blood in the kitchen and on some of the walls.

“We won’t let his blood be spilled with no response,” she said.

Others are using whatever means they can to try to avoid a cycle of retribution.

Muhammad al-Asmar, a media official with the new government, said he sent out a Google document to residents of his native village, Qabhani, in Hama province, to submit any grievances against fellow villagers. Mr. al-Asmar said he took the initiative after hearing that several people whom the government had relied on to abuse and intimidate Syrians had returned home after Mr. al-Assad’s fall.

“There wasn’t any response,” he said, because “people are saying, ‘I’m going to take justice into my own hands.’”

Still, he hopes that such an approach could be adopted on a national level to stem vigilante justice.

Officials with the new justice ministry admit that they were not prepared to take over governance for much of the country when they launched their offensive on Nov. 27. Efforts to maintain calm appear for now to be coming in the form of public statements or suggested sermons for imams appealing to peoples’ restraint.

“Honestly, we are under a great weight and there will be transgressions,” said Ahmad Hilal, the new head judge at the Aleppo courthouse. People who are angry over crimes during the Assad era “don’t want to wait for the courts to act — they want to take law and justice into their own hands.”

The struggle against mob justice is daunting because in every city and town, Syrians who may be accused of such crimes are returning home.

When Assad’s government fell last month, Alaa Khateeb went back to his village, Taftanaz, in the countryside of Idlib province. His family quickly started telling people that he had dodged the military for years and then deserted twice to signal that he was not a willing participant in Mr. al-Assad’s army.

“I know I haven’t done anything,” Mr. Khateeb, 25, a married father of three, said on a recent day on the outskirts of the village, working to renovate a relative’s home that Syrian soldiers had taken over and stripped.

Despite Mr. Khateeb’s protestations, he faces a cloud of suspicion. Even lowly conscripts are being blamed for enabling crimes — whether or not that is true.

One of Mr. Khateeb’s relatives, Salah Khateeb, 67, who has a produce market in the village, wasn’t sure he would even say “hi” once he heard that his second cousin had returned to Taftanaz.

“He is my relative and I was questioning if I should accept him or not,” he said. “Others might even consider taking retaliation.”

Muhammad Haj Kadour, Jacob Roubai and Nader Ibrahim contributed reporting.

Mediators were aiming on Wednesday to clinch a deal within days between Israel and Hamas on a cease-fire that would release hostages held in Gaza, after more than a year of devastating war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and destroyed much of the enclave.

Neither Israel nor Hamas has publicly endorsed the agreement, but the Palestinian group said on Tuesday that the negotiations had entered their “final stages.”

In order to implement the deal, Hamas’s negotiating team at the talks in Doha, Qatar, must obtain the consent of the group’s commanders in Gaza, including Mohammad Sinwar, whose brother Yahya led the group before being killed by Israel in October.

Hamas officials did not respond to questions about whether Mr. Sinwar had replied to the proposal. But two Israeli security officials said that objections raised by Mr. Sinwar to a draft agreement had been resolved and estimated that a deal could be concluded within the coming 24 to 48 hours.

A Hamas official aware of the talks said that its negotiators were working to have details finalized by the end of Wednesday or Thursday but that negotiations were still ongoing and that the timing was not clear.

Officials interviewed for this article spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.

Outstanding issues included maps of how Israeli forces would redeploy inside Gaza during the cease-fire, as well as lists of Palestinian prisoners slated for release in exchange for Israeli and foreign hostages, one of the officials said.

Israel has also demanded a system to prevent armed fighters from returning to northern Gaza. Mediators are also trying to iron out details on inspections of the hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians who would be expected to head to northern Gaza from the south, where many have been displaced, in the event of a truce, the official said.

The latest round of talks is being held in Qatar, a key mediator alongside Egypt and the United States. Majed al-Ansari, the spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry, said on Tuesday that the two sides had overcome major disagreements.

In Israel, some hard-line members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have also voiced opposition to the deal. But on Wednesday, Gideon Saar, the Israeli foreign minister, said he believed that a majority would sign off on an agreement if it came to a cabinet vote.

Months of shuttle diplomacy have failed to end the war in Gaza, which began after Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that killed 1,200 people and saw 250 taken hostage. Around 105 captives were later released in a weeklong cease-fire in November 2023 in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.

Israel and Hamas have since held numerous rounds of indirect talks, all of which ultimately collapsed amid mutual recriminations. Officials familiar with the negotiations have expressed cautious optimism while noting that there is always a chance that the discussions will founder.

The current deal is broadly similar to a three-phase cease-fire framework publicized by President Biden in late May, according to several officials familiar with the talks. On Wednesday, Yossi Fuchs, Mr. Netanyahu’s cabinet secretary, posted on X that the latest proposal was the same as the one from May.

Under the May proposal, Israel and Hamas would first observe a six-week cease-fire in which Hamas would release women, older men, and ill hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinians jailed by Israel, and 600 trucks carrying humanitarian relief would enter Gaza daily.

The proposal also calls for Hamas to release three female hostages on day one of a deal, four more on day seven, and another 26 over the following five weeks, according to a copy of the document obtained by The Times. At the same time, Israel would be required to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners during the initial six weeks.

A minimum of 60,000 temporary homes and 200,000 tents would also be brought into Gaza during the initial phase.

During the second phase of a deal, Israel and Hamas would declare a “permanent cessation of hostilities,” Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza and the remaining living hostages would be swapped for Palestinian prisoners. But the details have been a major point of contention: For months, Hamas demanded Israel commit to ending the war, which Israel resisted.

Abu Bakr Bashir contributed reporting.

Decades ago, Mozambique’s liberation party, Frelimo, easily attracted adoring crowds. The promise of salvation from Portuguese colonizers, and a life with jobs and housing for all, was an easy sell in a southern African nation that was suffering under racist rule.

But when Daniel Chapo of Frelimo became president on Wednesday, he assumed the leadership of a country more dissatisfied with his party than at any point during its 50 years of independence. Tens of thousands of people took to the street after the October election, which voters, international observers, opposition leaders and rights groups have roundly criticized as fraudulent.

The country of 33 million has been roiled by political chaos since the vote. And now, Frelimo’s grip on power is being tested like never before at a time when Mozambique faces urgent economic and social crises, analysts say. Two of the three opposition parties boycotted the opening of Parliament on Monday.

The anger among voters exploded into massive street protests in the past several months that led to clashes with the police. At least 300 people have been killed.

Mr. Chapo and his party had likely hoped that the inauguration on Wednesday would help move the country toward reconciliation and stability. Instead, the challenges facing Frelimo’s leadership could just be getting started, political insiders say.

“Frelimo became used to seeing themselves as the chosen party,” said Gabriel Muthisse, a former top party official who remains an active member. “They believed that elections were only a formality for the people to confirm their leadership. Over the past five, 10 years, things are showing that that is false.”

Last week in the capital, Maputo, the police responded with deadly force when supporters took to the streets to greet the top opposition leader, Venâncio Mondlane, who returned to Mozambique after a self-imposed exile. The fiery populist has won the support of disaffected young voters who see him as an ally in their fight against a corrupt political elite.

Mr. Mondlane, who claims to have won the election, has called for continued protests, though this week has not attracted the mass demonstrations that shut down the capital and other cities in previous months.

In an interview in Maputo, Mr. Mondlane said that he has communicated with Mr. Chapo through a mutual friend. He expressed hope that the president would negotiate a resolution to end the political crisis and accept reforms put forward by him in a recent proposal. Those reforms include building three million houses for poor Mozambicans and creating a half-billion-dollar fund for startups led by women and young people.

“You must give the people something very crucial and something tangible,” Mr. Mondlane said. “I don’t know if all the items that are in my proposal will be satisfied or not. But I think that we will begin a platform of dialogue.”

Protests were still needed, he added, because to ensure reforms will happen, “you must put the government under pressure.”

Mr. Chapo, 48, emerged last year as Frelimo’s surprise presidential candidate. Unlike others in the party, he did not lobby for the nomination. He entered public office just 10 years ago, but came face to face with the country’s troubled political history long ago.

When he was 5, he said, his family was kidnapped by guerrilla forces fighting Frelimo during Mozambique’s 16-year civil war. A lawyer by training, he served as a provincial governor before running for the presidency for the first time last year as a member of Frelimo.

Branquinho João da Costa, a 43-year-old doctor living part time in Maputo, recalled his grade school days when the glory of Frelimo was drilled into him and his classmates through freedom songs. “It’s very difficult to be completely disconnected from Frelimo,” he said.

Many Mozambicans were now disgruntled with the party over accusations of corruption and its failure to address rising prices, which he called “a new kind of slavery for the people.” Mr. da Costa said the Frelimo of his childhood was more in touch with the party’s socialist roots, and that it was led then by officials who cared less about wealth and power.

“The real aim of Frelimo was serving people,” he said. “Now many of them, they fight to get political positions just to steal from us.”

Frelimo no longer has the luxury of ignoring such criticism, some party members say. The past few months have been a warning, said Alsácia Sardinha, who was sworn in this week for her third term as a member of Parliament for Frelimo.

“We have to reinvent ourselves to respond to the demands of the people,” she said. That reinvention includes the party policing its own government against wrongdoing, she added.

Mr. Muthisse, the former Frelimo official, said that Parliament can no longer rubber stamp laws put forward by the president. The party needs to focus on reforming institutions, like the electoral commission and the courts, in order to regain public trust, he said.

That reform should be at the center of negotiations with the opposition, Mr. Muthisse said.

“Everybody has to bring ideas,” he said, “so that in the next elections, we all believe.”

As Panama’s president laid a wreath to honor those who died protesting the American occupation 60 years ago, the ceremony attendees were resolute.

The commemoration this month came just days after President-elect Donald J. Trump falsely claimed China was controlling the Panama Canal and suggested he could use military force to retake the waterway.

The threat rippled through a country still haunted by the events of 1964, when students trying to plant the Panamanian flag in the U.S.-occupied canal zone were met with deadly force.

“My brother did not die for nothing,” said Carlos E. Bonilla Cacó, whose brother was killed in the demonstrations that sparked the movement leading Panamanians to regain sovereignty.

The country’s leader agreed.

In the foothill near the Panama Canal Authority’s office, President José Raúl Mulino was firm. “The canal is and will continue to be Panamanian,” he said.

The statement directly challenged Mr. Trump, who some analysts say is only posturing to press Panama to lower fees for American goods traversing the canal, a subject he has recently railed against.

But former American officials warn that he may alienate Panama at a time when China is trying to woo the country as an ally and expand its influence in Latin America.

“Trump’s saber rattling could dampen the Panamanian government’s desire to broaden the relationship with the U.S. economically,” said Ramon Escobar, who until September served on the National Security Council and is currently the managing director at Actum, a global consultancy firm.

He “may end up pushing them away at a time when there is a real opportunity to get Panama back into our orbit,” Mr. Escobar said.

The canal was constructed by the United States in the early 20th century, but Panama took back full control in 1999 and has since operated the waterway through the Panama Canal Authority.

Today, Panama holds special strategic significance for China because of the canal, but Beijing has been working to expand its influence in Latin America, and among developing countries more broadly. It has portrayed itself as an alternative to what it calls American hegemony and bullying, casting itself as a more sympathetic, fellow developing country.

And with significant investments in port construction worldwide, China is positioning itself to influence global commerce and monitor international activities.

Specifically, U.S. officials have grown increasingly concerned about two seaports at each end of the Panama Canal, which have been operated for decades by CK Hutchison Holdings, a company based in Hong Kong.

While CK Hutchison is a publicly listed conglomerate whose largest owner is a Hong Kong billionaire family, Beijing could still use its national security laws to force the company to assist in intelligence-gathering or military operations.

Panamanian officials argue, however, that China doesn’t pose a risk. The canal is open to the public, they say, and any Chinese interference would be visibly obvious.

“Anyone can use a satellite to see what is going in and out of the port,” Ilya Espino de Marotta, the deputy administrator of the Panama Canal, said in an interview last week. “The canal runs through the country, along national roads and is visible to the public.”

During his first administration, Mr. Trump did bring up the Panama Canal internally, indicating that he sees the waterway as unfinished business, said John Feeley, who served as U.S. ambassador to Panama from 2015 until 2018.

In June 2017, Mr. Trump met with the Panamanian president at the time, Juan Carlos Varela, and complained that the U.S. Navy was paying too much to traverse the canal — about $1 million annually, Mr. Feeley said. (That cost is so minuscule it would be akin to a rounding error in the Pentagon’s budget, analysts say.)

But Mr. Trump never brought up China’s presence or supposed influence over the canal even though just weeks previously Panama had broken off relations with Taiwan and aligned with Beijing, said Mr. Feeley, who attended the White House meeting between the leaders.

The former ambassador said he tried to get the White House to focus on China’s rising influence in Panama, but the issue never grew to a level of serious alarm.

At the time, China was promising to invest in big-ticket infrastructure items in Panama, including a canal bridge, as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. Through the initiative Beijing has increased its influence globally by investing in seaports, roads and trains from Kenya to Sri Lanka and, most recently, Latin America. Critics say Beijing uses the program to saddle foreign governments with failing projects or unsustainable debt in order to wield China’s leverage.

Mr. Feeley said he tried to get American companies to bid on such projects to counter China. But the U.S. Embassy in Panama City never got the White House’s backing to persuade American companies to bid, he said.

“It’s not that we are losing to China in Latin America; in most cases we aren’t even showing up to the commercial battlefield,” Mr. Feeley said.

Latin American governments like Panama’s have complained that when they put out bids for expensive infrastructure projects, the United States is often absent, forcing them to rely on others from Europe to China to get the work done.

“The U.S. isn’t bidding on big infrastructure projects here, but China is,” said Giulia de Sanctis, the president of the Panamanian Association of Business Executives. “Are we supposed to tell them now: ‘It’s time to get out of Panama; Trump doesn’t like you.’ Would anyone feel safe investing here then?”

The Panama Canal Authority has said that while the United States built the canal for military purposes, the Panamanians developed it into a major hub of global trade.

Once the U.S. military handed it over, the authority invested more than $5 billion to widen the waterway and accommodate the giant cargo ships that travel from the United States to East Asia, its most popular route.

“If it wasn’t for our investment, the canal would be irrelevant on the scale of global trade,” said Ms. Espino de Marotta.

“Our neutrality is our greatest business asset, and it enables us to be a route for global commerce,” she said. At the Atlantic entrance of the canal, three ports are separately operated by companies based in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the United States, she said.

“These ports have been managed by Hong Kong since 1997, throughout Trump’s first administration,” she added. “Trump never said a thing about it then, so why now?”

Some Panamanians are reluctant to allow China to invest further in the country. Although Mr. Varela shifted Panama’s diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan and entered into several business agreements with Beijing, subsequent governments have sought to scale back these commitments.

Ramón Martínez, who served as the minister of commerce after Mr. Varela stepped down, expressed his discomfort with the political and economic agreements made by the earlier administration with China. He said he halted a free-trade agreement with China that was under negotiation. The bridge over the canal that China pledged to build was also paused.

Mr. Martínez emphasized that for Panama, its most important ally will always be the United States.

Last week, hundreds of tourists gathered on a terrace at the Miraflores Visitors Center, giving them a bird’s-eye view of the Panama Canal. They waved as a towering cruise ship squeezed its way through the canal.

“At first it made me laugh, the insanity of it all,” said Jacqueline Williams of Mr. Trump’s threats against Panama as she waved to a passing cruise ship. The 67-year-old nonprofit educator was visiting the canal from New York City.

“But then you think: This is a guy who idolizes Putin,” she said, referring to the Russian president. “Trump said on the campaign trail he wanted to restore peace to the world, but now he is threatening military expansionism.”

Alex E. Hernández contributed reporting from Panama City, Vivian Wang from Beijing and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega from Mexico City.

Ukraine said Russian forces had unleashed a “massive” missile attack on the country’s infrastructure on Wednesday, forcing officials to impose emergency power cuts to relieve pressure on the country’s battered grid.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that air defenses had shot down at least 30 of the more than 40 missiles that Russia launched in a barrage targeting gas and energy facilities.

“Another massive Russian attack. It’s the middle of winter, and the target for the Russians remains unchanged: our energy infrastructure,” he said in a statement on social media from the capital, where temperatures hovered just above freezing.

Air, land and sea-based missiles — including at least one ballistic missile — were launched in the barrage, along with dozens of attack drones, according to Ukraine’s Air Force. It said energy facilities in the Kharkiv, Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions had suffered damage, but emphasized that not all missiles that evaded air defenses had struck their targets.

Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed that it had used “precision weapons and strike drones” against critical gas and energy infrastructure, asserting in a statement that “all designated facilities have been hit.”

The Russian military has repeatedly targeted the Ukrainian energy infrastructure in campaigns to wear down the country in wintertime. The attacks on power plants and substations have left the country’s energy network on the verge of collapse, experts say.

On Wednesday, air-raid sirens wailed at around 5:45 a.m. in Kyiv, the capital, as most of the country was put on alert for missile launches. Poland’s military protectively scrambled fighter jets.

As Ukrainians huddled in shelters into a third hour and the air force warned of incoming cruise missiles, the energy minister, Herman Galushchenko, announced emergency steps.

“Due to the massive attack, the transmission system operator is applying preventive restriction measures,” Mr. Galushchenko, wrote in a statement on Facebook.

Emergency power shutdowns were briefly applied in six regions across the country, including Kharkiv in the northeast and Zaporizhzhia in the south, according to Ukrenergo, the national electricity operator.

Two critical infrastructure facilities were hit in western Ukraine’s Lviv region, according to the head of the regional military administration, Maksym Kozytskyi. He later said that two houses and two outbuildings had also been damaged. Facilities in the Ivano-Frankivsk region also came under attack, the authorities there said.

The attack came a day after Moscow threatened to retaliate for what it said was Ukraine’s latest use of Western-made long-range missiles to strike inside Russia.

Ukraine’s energy network has been so battered by the strikes that officials have been forced to seek out alternatives — like renting floating power plants and scavenging scrapped ones from the region — to ease pressure on the grid and prevent a crisis.

Mediators worked on Wednesday to finalize a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas that would release hostages held in Gaza and halt fighting in the devastating war.

Neither Israeli nor Hamas officials have publicly confirmed their position on the cease-fire proposal. Israeli and U.S. officials have said they were waiting for a final response from Hamas.

The Palestinian group said on Tuesday that the negotiations had entered the “final stages.” But there were still doubts about whether both sides would ultimately agree, after earlier talks failed to secure a deal.

What is the state of the talks?

The U.S. secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, said on Tuesday that Israel and Hamas were “right on the brink” of agreeing to a deal to pause the fighting in Gaza and release hostages held there in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

He and diplomats from other mediating countries, including Qatar and Egypt, have for months failed to reach a breakthrough in talks, but they have made progress quickly in recent weeks.

“On Sunday, the United States, Qatar and Egypt put forward a final proposal,” Mr. Blinken said. “The ball is now in Hamas’ court.”

Mediators “managed to minimize a lot of the disagreements between both parties,” Majed al-Ansari, the Qatari foreign ministry spokesman, said, adding that they were focused on “the final details of reaching an agreement.”

Officials in both the Israeli government and Hamas have suggested that they are ready to move forward if the other side signs off.

On Monday, a Hamas official had said a deal was possible in the coming days as long as Israel did not suddenly change its positions. On Tuesday, an Israeli official said Israel was ready to close the deal and was waiting for Hamas to make a decision.

What does the proposal say?

Given the sensitive, continuing negotiations, officials have been wary of describing the proposed agreement except in broad terms.

The framework of the deal was heavily inspired by previous proposals discussed in May and July, said one diplomat familiar with the talks, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the volatile negotiations. Those proposals detailed a three-stage cease-fire in which Israeli troops would gradually withdraw from Gaza, as Hamas released hostages in exchange for Palestinians jailed by Israel.

Israeli officials hope to secure the release of at least some of the approximately 100 remaining hostages who have been held in Gaza since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October 2023 that started the war. About 35 of the remaining hostages are presumed dead by the Israeli authorities.

Hamas leaders want to end Israel’s military campaign, secure the entry of materials for reconstruction and gain the freedom of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

During the first phase of the proposed cease-fire — which would last roughly six weeks — Hamas would release 33 named hostages, most of whom Israel believes are alive, said an Israeli official, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks. Israel is willing to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange, the official said, but the number depends on how many of the hostages are still alive.

Why have talks moved forward in recent weeks?

Some officials have suggested that the change in U.S. administrations, set to take place on Jan. 20, put pressure on Israel and Hamas to accelerate their decision-making after months of delay.

The incoming U.S. president, Donald J. Trump, has warned that there will be “all hell to pay” unless the hostages are freed by the time he becomes president. Steve Witkoff, his pick for Middle East envoy, has also made trips to Qatar and Israel.

The talks have also gained momentum since Israel reached a separate cease-fire agreement with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which began firing rockets into Israel immediately after the Hamas-led attack of October 2023. Battered badly by its escalating conflict with Israel, Hezbollah agreed to a cease-fire with Israel in November, a deal that helped isolate Hamas.