Hamas nixes Cairo’s proposal for brief Gaza ceasefire in exchange for 4 hostages
Diplomat says negotiations ongoing, all options still on the table; Netanyahu said willing to offer ‘millions of dollars,’ safe passage out of Gaza to captors who release hostages
The US State Department said on Monday that Hamas had rejected a proposal for a short-term ceasefire and hostage release deal, indicating that the terror group was refusing to budge from its key demand for a permanent withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip even after the IDF’s killing of its leader Yahya Sinwar last month.
The rejection has reportedly led Israeli negotiators to warn Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that unless he shows some flexibility in negotiations, a deal will remain unattainable.
The revelation that the terror group had rejected a proposal drawn up by Egypt for a temporary ceasefire was made in a US readout issued on Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s call with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty.
Blinken “noted that Hamas has once again refused to release even a limited number of hostages to secure a ceasefire and relief for the people of Gaza,” the readout stated.
Egypt had put forth a proposal that would have begun with an initial 48-hour ceasefire during which Hamas would have prepared for the release of four Israeli hostages over the next 10 days, two Arab diplomats told The Times of Israel.
The four hostages were to fall under the so-called humanitarian category, meaning they were to be either women, elderly, or sick.
In exchange, Israel was to release roughly 100 Palestinian security prisoners, the diplomats said, and Israel and Hamas would have held talks throughout the 12-day deal about a more long-lasting ceasefire.
But Hamas made clear that it would only agree to a short-term deal that includes guarantees for a longer-term one, and the Egyptian proposal stopped short of such an assurance, given Israel’s refusal to agree.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was recorded just last week saying he would not agree to end the war in exchange for the remaining 101 hostages, as he faces pressure from far-right coalition partners to continue fighting in Gaza.
Despite Hamas’s rejection of Cairo’s proposal, a diplomat familiar with the matter told the Times of Israel that discussions were still ongoing and that mediators were still trying to broker an agreement.
The diplomat said all options were on the table to try and secure a deal, and that the sides were watching to see the results of the US presidential elections on Tuesday to determine how to respond.
A separate proposal for a short-term ceasefire put forward by Doha last week has yet to receive a response from Hamas.
The Qatar-backed proposal reportedly calls for the release of 11-14 hostages from Gaza in exchange for a number of Palestinian security prisoners from Israel and a month-long truce in the Strip.
However, Channel 12 reported on Monday evening that after receiving an overview of the ongoing negotiations on Sunday, senior government and security officials do not believe Hamas will agree to the offer.
According to the report, the negotiators told Netanyahu and select government ministers during a limited security consultation on Sunday that, despite the assassination of Sinwar in Gaza last month, the terror group was not expected to renege on its previously stated demands for the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and a permanent end to the fighting.
Those demands have been rejected by Netanyahu, who has said that Israel will continue fighting until its war aims of destroying Hamas and recovering the hostages are met. Netanyahu has also demanded that any deal include a carve-out for troops to remain stationed along the so-called Philadelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border.
With Hamas appearing unwilling to move, negotiators were reported to have warned Netanyahu during Sunday’s security consultation that without flexibility on the Israeli side, negotiations would remain deadlocked.
Both Israel and the US have blamed Hamas for the over-two-month impasse that ensued prior to Sinwar’s death, saying that the terror group refused to engage in talks.
Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt have been less convinced by this argument, privately maintaining that the US has downplayed Netanyahu’s culpability for the impasse and claiming that a deal would have been possible over the summer had the premier not added new conditions, Arab diplomats have told The Times of Israel.
Amid ongoing efforts by mediating countries to bring Hamas back to the negotiating table and absent a deal, Channel 12 reported on Monday that Netanyahu was examining a new proposal, and had instructed negotiators to present it to mediators.
According to the report, in an effort to secure the release of the hostages, Netanyahu is prepared to offer their captors “several million dollars” for the release of each hostage.
In addition, the captors who release hostages would be guaranteed “safe passage” for them and their families, the report stated.
The prime minister first floated the idea of granting safe passage out of Gaza in exchange for releasing the hostages following Sinwar’s assassination.
“Hamas is holding 101 hostages in Gaza, who are citizens of 23 countries; citizens of Israel, but citizens of many other countries,” the premier said in his October 17 address. “Israel is committed to doing everything in our power to bring all of them home. And Israel will guarantee the safety of all those who return our hostages.”
While Netanyahu insists that his government is doing everything in its power to enable the release of the hostages, their relatives have accused the premier of intentionally sabotaging various opportunities to release their loved ones.
The accusations have intensified in recent days, after Eli Feldstein, a spokesman for the prime minister, was arrested on suspicion of removing sensitive info from an Israel Defense Forces database and leaking it to a news outlet.
According to the suspicions, Feldstein was involved in leaking a document to the German tabloid Bild ostensibly showing Hamas as unwilling to reach a hostage release deal in Gaza.
A second story, published and later removed by the Jewish Chronicle, alleged that Hamas would try to smuggle terrorists and hostages out of Gaza to Iran via Egypt.
According to the court, the leaks in the case are alleged to have damaged efforts to secure the release of hostages in Gaza. Ninety-seven of the 251 hostages kidnapped on October 7 remain in the Strip, many of them still alive, along with four others held there for around a decade.
Critics say the the Bild and Jewish Chronicle reports dovetail neatly with Netanyahu’s talking points at the time, which sought to play up the importance of Israel’s demand for soldiers to remain stationed inside Gaza while placing blame on Hamas for the lack of progress on a hostage release and ceasefire.
The Hostage Families Forum said on Monday that it expected investigations to be opened into “all those suspected of sabotage and undermining state security.”
“Such actions, especially during wartime, endanger the hostages, jeopardize their chances of return and abandon them to the risk of being killed by Hamas terrorists.”
The forum represents most of the families of the 101 hostages still held in Gaza.
“The suspicions suggest that individuals associated with the prime minister acted to carry out one of the greatest frauds in the country’s history,” the forum says.
“This is a moral low point like no other. It is a severe blow to the remaining trust between the government and its citizens,” the forum said.
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November last year, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
