The Israel and Hamas are making headway in their negotiations for a truce and hostage release
The Israel-Hamas War in the Middle East: a Breakdown and a Planned Agreement for the Associated Release of Palestinians
U.S. and Arab mediators made significant progress overnight toward brokering a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war and the release of scores of hostages held in the Gaza Strip, but a deal hasn’t been reached yet, officials said Monday.
An agreement is close, according to an advisor to the Qatari prime minister and Foreign Ministry spokesman. The talks are now about the final details as the main obstacles have been overcome.
A Hamas official said there are still certain issues that need to be worked out, including Israeli commitment to ending the war and details about the withdrawal of Israeli troops. The official wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.
More than 100 hostages were freed in a similar deal between Israel and Hamas late in the 20th century. A number of Palestinians were released from Israeli jails as part of the deal.
A deal could weaken Netanyahu’s coalition, which includes two far-right factions that have threatened to leave the government if Israel makes too many concessions. Members of the opposition have promised to give Netanyahu the support that he needs to approve a hostage release, but the hardliners’ anger could be a source of instability down the road.
Netanyahu is hoping that the prospect of a Trump administration — which includes allies of the West Bank settler movement — will persuade his partners to remain in the government.
Both President Biden’s administration and the incoming team of President Donald Trump pressured the sides to close a deal. A delegation including Mossad intelligence chief David Barnea and Shin Bet internal security agency director Ronen Bar joined the talks after a visit by a Trump envoy to the Middle East.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, said that McGurk had been working on the text to be presented to both sides. He doesn’t know whether a deal can be reached by January 20.
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“We are very, very close,” he said. “Yet being very close still means we’re far, because until you actually get across the finish line, we’re not there.”
Since 2007, when Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip, there have been numerous wars between the two countries. However none of the previous conflicts have been nearly this long or this deadly.
These are just a fraction of the hostages and prisoners that Hamas and Israel hold. The Hamas organization in Gaza has almost 100 hostages, some of which have dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship. Israel is holding more than 10,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Palestinians in Gaza were not giving up on stopping Israel’s campaign, which has driven around half of the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes.
“We hear that there are negotiations, but we don’t see it,” said Mazen Hammad, a resident of the southern city of Khan Younis. We believe in a truce if we see it on the ground.
The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross is visiting Israel and Gaza as soon as a new deal can be reached, just one month after it brokered the last hostage-prisoner exchange.
Yet Israel has its own reasons to cooperate with Trump on expediting a deal: it wants his help pursuing diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia and his support for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear program.
An official from Hamas told NPR that Hamas wants to demonstrate flexibility by proposing several options to resolve the issues.
Israel describes the hostages to be released as humanitarian cases, and the Israeli official said they comprise women, people over the age of 50, children and the injured and ailing.
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“I think there’s a certain fear of the unknown, in terms of what the new administration will do and will say,” Lew said. “There’s no daylight between the incoming administration and the outgoing administration in terms of wanting a hostage deal now and pressing all parties to make the concessions that are appropriate to reach that.”
President-elect Trump has repeatedly warned that if the hostages captured from Israel by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, 2023, and held in Gaza aren’t released by his inauguration, there would be “hell to pay.”
Many families of the remaining hostages don’t know if they’ll get pressure to release their relatives in the first phase. They’re lobbying for a comprehensive plan to end the war and release all hostages.
Large sections of the public in both Israel and Gaza are exhausted by the conflict and will welcome an agreement that promises a definitive end. Some members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government oppose the deal on the grounds that Hamas should be completely eradicated to stop a repeat of the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel in which 1200 people were killed.
The Israeli official said that a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza wouldn’t happen until hostages were free, but a further round of negotiations would begin 16 days into the agreement.
But the first exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees is expected to take place immediately after implementation begins, perhaps even on the same day. There are talks about having displaced people in the south of Gaza be allowed to return to their homes in the north.
It will likely be challenged before the Israeli Supreme Court if the deal is not approved by the Israeli Cabinet and government after it is signed. The terms could take days before they are implemented.
He wouldn’t give any details of the agreement. An Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity explained some of the key provisions of the talks.
After more than fifteen months of fighting in their most devastating war ever, Israel and Hamas are extremely close to agreeing to a ceasefire, according to officials involved in the talks.
