Hamas said to reject proposal for hostage-ceasefire deal before receiving it
Israeli official says terror group’s response ‘bizarre’ given that plan not yet sent; Hamas reportedly objects to demands over Philadelphi Corridor, return of Gazans to north Strip
The Hamas terror group preemptively rejected the terms of an Israeli proposal for a hostage-ceasefire deal on Thursday night, according to Reuters, in what a senior Israeli official called “bizarre” messages, given that “nobody has read [the proposal] yet.”
A senior Israeli official said Hamas had not yet seen the latest proposal, which was expected to go out “in the coming hours.”
“We haven’t sent it yet, nobody has read it yet. Even the negotiators haven’t got it yet. They will read it before transferring it to Hamas for their reaction,” said the official, presumably referring to the Arab intermediaries facilitating the talks.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, the White House, and Egypt’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
Families of American-Israeli hostages who met with US President Joe Biden and Netanyahu at the White House on Thursday said they were told Israel would submit an updated deal proposal to Hamas within days. “The leaders and their staff… are working as we speak to put together an updated Israeli proposal that will be sent back to Hamas,” Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son Sagui is held hostage, told The Times of Israel after their meeting. “It is all within the framework of that three-stage proposed deal that the President announced at the end of May.”
Hamas reportedly objected to an expected demand that Israel be allowed to screen Palestinians returning to the north of the Gaza Strip after fleeing south earlier in the war.
Israel has agreed to allow civilians to return home, but seeks a means to prevent Hamas fighters from returning with them. Earlier this month, Netanyahu listed as a “nonnegotiable” that “the return of thousands of armed terrorists to the northern Gaza Strip will not be possible.”
Israel and Hamas are in ongoing negotiations, mediated by Qatar and Egypt and the US, for a potential ceasefire deal that would see the release of 111 hostages still held in Gaza after they were abducted from Israel during the October 7 attack, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel from Gaza, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, starting the ongoing war between Israel and the terror group. Dozens of the hostages still held are presumed to be dead.
Egyptian sources that spoke to Reuters also cited the issue of Israeli military control over the Philadelphi Corridor, the roughly 14-kilometer (9-mile) stretch separating Gaza from Egypt, as a sticking point in negotiations.
A senior Israeli official told The Times of Israel this week that Cairo was privately moving toward allowing Israeli troops to remain there, explaining, “They too don’t want Hamas to resume smuggling on the border.”
Israeli negotiators since May had been discussing withdrawing from the corridor, with the US leading trilateral discussions with Israel and Egypt about the creation of an underground wall along the corridor and the installation of a surveillance system to thwart any weapons smuggling into Gaza, US officials have said.
But seeking to capitalize off a boosted position on the battlefield earlier this month, Netanyahu shifted course and declared that the IDF remaining in Philadelphi was nonnegotiable, alongside his demand that armed combatants not be able to return to northern Gaza.
The demand to remain in Philadelphi appeared to contradict the framework approved in May, which envisioned Israel withdrawing from the entirety of the Gaza Strip during the second of the deal’s three six-week phases.
A member of Israel’s negotiating team, along with an Arab mediator, had expressed concern to The Times of Israel earlier this month that the new demands from Netanyahu risked jeopardizing the talks.
US President Joe Biden publicly presented a framework for a deal that would see a staged release of hostages in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners and a ceasefire that, initially temporary, would then become permanent in the second stage of the deal.
Jacob Magid contributed to this report.
