Egyptian plan would free 5 living hostages on day one, with releases every 7-10 days
Diplomats say that the outline would guarantee talks on the second phase; Israel continues to deny receiving any new proposal from Cairo
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
An Egyptian proposal to end renewed fighting in Gaza would see five living hostages released on the first day of the restored ceasefire, with another five living hostages released every 7-10 days, two foreign diplomats with knowledge of the details told The Times of Israel on Wednesday.
Dual US-Israeli citizen Edan Alexander would be released on the first day, said the diplomats.
The Prime Minister’s Office has denied receiving any new Egyptian proposal.
According to the diplomats, the IDF would withdraw to the positions it held during the first phase of the ceasefire that collapsed earlier this month. Israeli troops held a buffer zone inside the border with Gaza and were stationed on the Philadelphi Corridor, but had withdrawn from the Netzarim Corridor dividing the Strip in two.
Since the resumption of fighting in Gaza last week, IDF ground troops have reoccupied part of the Netzarim corridor.
However, under the Egyptian proposal, the sides would negotiate over the IDF’s withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor, which runs along the Gazan side of the border with Egypt.
The outlines also guaranteed that negotiations over Phase Two of the ceasefire would take place, something Israel had avoided engaging in despite agreeing to do so.
In mid-January, Israel and Hamas reached a hostage-ceasefire and prisoner-release deal that officially lasted 42 days and saw the terror group release 30 living hostages and the bodies of eight slain captives, while Israel released almost 2,000 terrorists and other prisoners before the expiration of the deal’s first phase.
The deal had originally envisioned a second phase that would see a permanent end to the war in exchange for the release of the remaining hostages and many more Palestinian security prisoners.
Israel would release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners under the Egyptian plan as well.
Mid-level Israeli teams have made multiple trips to Cairo over the past two weeks to discuss the proposal, according to one of the diplomats.
Egypt presented the proposal last week, security sources told Reuters on Monday, with a Hamas official saying that the terror group had “responded positively” to the idea.
The security sources added that the US also agreed to Egypt’s plan, but an Israeli official denied on Monday that Jerusalem had received any such proposal.
According to the Israeli official, Israel is still trying to get Hamas to agree to a US-backed proposal spearheaded by Trump’s special envoy to the Mideast, Steve Witkoff, which would not entail a full Israeli withdrawal from the Strip.
The narrower “Witkoff proposal” rejected by Hamas thus far, would have seen the ceasefire extended through April 19 and have the terror group release five living hostages in exchange for a large number of Palestinian security prisoners.
Israel said it accepted Witkoff’s proposal but was seeking the release of 11 living hostages.
If Hamas does not agree to Israel’s terms, “we will keep increasing the pressure until Hamas breaks,” the official said on Monday, threatening “a widespread ground campaign” in Gaza.
Netanyahu ordered the resumption of fighting in Gaza last week, saying that talks moving forward would be held under fire after Hamas rejected proposals to extend phase one of the ceasefire.
Hamas has insisted on sticking to the original terms of the deal, which was supposed to begin its second phase at the beginning of March.
For a month, though, Israel refused to enter talks on the specific terms of phase two, as the stage’s general framework requires it to withdraw fully from Gaza and agree to a permanent end of the war.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip still hold 59 hostages, including 58 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023.
They include the bodies of at least 35 confirmed dead by the IDF. Hamas released 30 hostages — 20 Israeli civilians, five soldiers, and five Thai nationals — and the bodies of eight slain Israeli captives during a ceasefire between January and March.
The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that in the early weeks of the war.
Eight hostages have been rescued from captivity by troops alive, and the bodies of 41 have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors and the body of a soldier who was killed in 2014.
The body of another soldier killed in 2014, Lt. Hadar Goldin, is still being held by Hamas and is counted among the 59 hostages.
The Times of Israel Community.