Israeli officials downplayed efforts Saturday by the United States to reword portions of the proposed hostage deal in an attempt to revive negotiations and push Hamas toward accepting the offer, as the terror group appeared to reject the possibility of renewing dialogue.
A senior Biden administration official said Saturday that the US had presented new language to intermediaries Egypt and Qatar aimed at trying to jump-start stalled Israel-Hamas negotiations.
The official, who requested anonymity to discuss the effort that the White House has yet to publicly unveil, said the revised text focuses on negotiations that are to start between Israel and Hamas during the first phase of a three-phase deal that US President Joe Biden laid out on May 31.
“Israel is committed to the terms of the proposal that [US] President Biden endorsed,” an Israeli official said, indicating that it would not approve changes that dramatically altered the deal as it was presented last month. “There is no change at all in its position.”
A top Hamas official confirmed Saturday that the group had received a reworked proposal on June 24, but told reporters it included “nothing new.”
The terror group also announced that its Qatar-based leader Ismail Haniyeh had spoken with Egyptian Intelligence Minister Abbas Kamel — a mediator in the talks — and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin about the negotiations.
Talks mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar have so far failed to secure any ceasefire and release of hostages held by Hamas, since a weeklong truce in November that saw the release of 105 captives.
Speaking at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his support for the deal as presented by Biden a month ago, blaming Hamas for the logjam.
“There is no change in Israel’s stance for the [hostage] release proposal endorsed by Biden,” he said, according to a readout from his office. “Today everyone knows a simple truth. Hamas is the only obstacle to the release of our hostages.”
He also rejected calls for Israel to stop short of destroying Hamas in order to reach a deal winning the captives’ release, vowing that Israel would both eliminate the terror group and recover its hostages held in Gaza.
“To anyone who doubts the achievement of these goals, I repeat: there is no substitute for victory. Our warriors did not fall in vain. We will not end the war until we achieve all our goals,” he says.
It is believed that 120 hostages remain in Gaza, 116 of whom were abducted by Hamas on October 7, when thousands of terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.
US President Joe Biden announces a proposed truce-hostage deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza at the White House’s State Dining Room in Washington, DC, May 31, 2024. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/AFP)
The first phase of the hostage deal called for a “full and complete ceasefire,” a withdrawal of Israeli forces from all densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of a number of hostages, including women, older people and the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
The proposal called for the parties to negotiate the terms of the second phase during the 42 days of phase one. Under the current proposal, Hamas could release all of the remaining men, both civilians and soldiers during that second stage. In return, Israel could free an agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners and detainees. The releases won’t occur until “sustainable calm” takes effect and all Israeli troops withdraw from Gaza.
The new proposed language, which the official didn’t detail, aims to find a workaround of differences between Israel and Hamas about the parameters of the negotiations between phase one and phase two. Hamas wants negotiations centered on the number and identity of Palestinian prisoners to be released from Israeli jails in exchange for remaining living Israeli soldiers and male hostages held in Gaza, the official said. Israel wants negotiations to be broader and include the demilitarization of the territory controlled by Hamas.
The Kan public broadcaster on Saturday quoted an Arab source with knowledge of the matter as saying that Egypt and Qatar had presented Hamas with a new draft proposal that included changes regarding the number and identity of Palestinian prisoners to be released by Israel.
Changes were also made to reflect Hamas’s preferred terminology of a “ceasefire” and “full withdrawal” from the Gaza Strip, the source said.
“We may be closer to a deal, but the ball is now in Hamas and Israel’s court,” the source was quoted as saying.
According to the public broadcaster, Israel has approved recent revisions to the draft proposal, leading Washington to examine the possibility of renewing in-person talks as soon as this week.
A military helicopter with released Israeli hostage Mia Schem arrive at the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, November 30, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Jerusalem currently puts more stock in Qatar than Egypt as a mediator, Kan reported, since Doha has proven itself capable of influencing Hamas. Cairo, on the other hand, is thought to be preoccupied with removing Israeli forces from the Philadelphi Corridor, which separates Gaza from Egypt.
Earlier rounds in the talks have faltered, in part, due to Israel’s refusal to commit to a full cessation of the fighting in Gaza as long as Hamas remains in power there, as well as the terror group’s refusal to discuss releasing the hostages while Israel remains in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas politburo member Osama Hamdan denied on Saturday, however, that any progress had been made in the truce-hostage talks.
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan speaks during a rally organized by Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group to express solidarity with the Palestinian people amid Israel’s war against the Hamas terror group, in a southern suburb of Beirut, May 17, 2021. (AP/Hassan Ammar)
“We can say that there is no real progress in the negotiations to stop the [Israeli] aggression so far,” Hamdan said at a press conference in Beirut, charging that the proposals were “merely a waste of time and provide additional time for the occupation to practice genocide.”
Israel has been accused of committing acts of genocide in its war against the Hamas terror group in Gaza. Israel strongly denies the charges and notes that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure and its fighters among the civilian population in the Strip.
Hamas was being pressured to accept Israel’s deal “as it is without modification,” Hamdan charged.
Nevertheless, several Israeli officials expressed cautious optimism that the sides were getting closer to a deal.
Channel 13 news quoted an Israeli official as saying that “there is an opening for a change in Hamas’s position and progress toward a deal.”
The source was said to add that Jerusalem approved of the changes Washington is making to certain clauses in the hostage deal, so long as it did not consider them to depart dramatically from the proposal presented by Biden.
People look for salvageable items following an Israeli raid in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, June 29, 2024. (Eyad Baba/AFP)
Kan also cited Israeli officials as saying that Jerusalem was prepared to hold negotiations before the end of the operation in Rafah, and that the talks could commence soon — while Israel could still apply military pressure in Gaza’s southernmost city.
The reports came as Israel was said to be preparing to scale back its fighting in the Gaza Strip, after IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said last week that the military was “approaching the point” at which Hamas’s Rafah battalions could be considered to have been dismantled.
AFP and Lazar Berman contributed to this report.
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