Hamas, Israel accuse each other of stalling hostage deal with new demands
Netanyahu’s office says unlike Hamas, ‘Israel did not change nor did it add any conditions to the proposal’ as terror group claims PM is employing a ‘strategy of procrastination’
Hamas accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday of preventing a ceasefire in Gaza by adding new conditions and demands to a US-backed Israeli truce proposal, charges the prime minister later denied.
The Palestinian terror group said it had received the latest response from Israel, following talks in Rome involving Israel, the United States, Egypt and Qatar.
In response, the Prime Minister’s Office placed the blame squarely on Hamas, saying that the terror group’s leadership is preventing an agreement from being reached.
“Israel did not change nor did it add any conditions to the proposal,” the PMO said in a statement. “Quite the opposite, up to this point Hamas is the one that demanded 29 changes and did not respond to the original proposal.”
The statement from Netanyahu’s office stressed that Israel continues to stand by the conditions the prime minister laid out earlier this month — “maximizing the number of living hostages [released], Israeli control over the Philadelphi Route, and the prevention of terrorists and weapons moving to the northern Gaza Strip.”
Israeli demonstrators, who have taken to the streets weekly, sometimes in the tens of thousands to demand a hostage release deal, have also accused the prime minister of prolonging the war for political ends. So have many of the hostages’ families.
“It is clear from what the mediators conveyed that Netanyahu has returned to his strategy of procrastination, evasion, and avoiding reaching an agreement by setting new conditions and demands,” Hamas said in a statement on Monday.
The terrorist organization accused Netanyahu of retreating from a proposal previously presented by mediators, which it said had already been based on an “Israeli paper.”
According to a report in Channel 13 news, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned members of the security cabinet at a meeting Sunday night that Israel’s updated proposal could result in it “missing the opportunity” to close a hostage deal.
“We already decided to allow the movement to north [of Gazan civilians], and if it doesn’t happen, there won’t be an agreement,” Gallant reportedly said, referring to a key Hamas demand.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir reportedly asked Gallant: “Then you don’t have a problem with armed terrorists going north?,” while Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich insisted that the Israeli proposal unveiled on May 27 by US President Joe Biden was not formally approved.
According to the report, both Science and Technology Minister Gila Gamliel and Transportation Minister Miri Regev stressed during the meeting the urgent need to free the hostages, as they are dying in captivity.
Netanyahu reportedly ended the conversation by pointing out that the focus of meeting was Israel’s response to Hezbollah, and that another gathering can be called to debate hostage talks.
Unnamed Hamas sources told the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that one of Netanyahu’s new conditions was a refusal to release 100 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences in exchange for the Israeli hostages being held captive by Hamas.
According to the report, Netanyahu was also refusing to release 15 Palestinian prisoners serving “long prison sentences” and insisting that some of the prisoners who would potentially be released in the deal be exiled and not allowed to return to the Palestinian territories.
Washington, which sponsors the talks, has repeatedly said a deal is close; the latest talks are over a proposal President Joe Biden unveiled in May.
Hamas wants a ceasefire agreement to end the war in Gaza, while Netanyahu says the conflict will stop only once Hamas is defeated. There are also disagreements over how a deal would be implemented.
Mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the US, have repeatedly said doors to more negotiations remain open, with both Israel and Hamas voicing readiness to pursue them.
The war in Gaza broke out on October 7 with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel, in which terrorists killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages.
It is believed that 111 of the hostages remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 39 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Seven hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 24 hostages have also been recovered, including three abductees mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 39,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 331.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
