Israel pessimistic as hostage talks begin in Doha, expected to last at least 2 weeks

Team of intel officials accompanying Mossad chief to remain in Qatari capital for negotiations, which WSJ says mediators warned Israel would be the final round if no deal reached

Demonstrators calling for the release of Israeli hostages held by Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip, outside the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, March 18, 2024. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
Demonstrators calling for the release of Israeli hostages held by Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip, outside the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, March 18, 2024. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

The latest round of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas kicked off Monday evening in Qatar, after an Israeli delegation led by Mossad chief David Barnea arrived in Doha to negotiate a hostages-for-ceasefire deal with the terror group.

A senior Israeli official cited by Hebrew media outlets said Barnea was due to hold meetings into the night and would likely return to Israel on Tuesday, while a negotiating team made up of intelligence officials would remain in the Qatari capital to continue the talks.

While describing the opening meeting with Qatari and Egyptian mediators as positive, the official cautioned the negotiations would be “long, difficult and complex.”

As the talks were beginning, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel that they were not “optimistic at all.”

At the same time, the official said, because of building international and domestic pressures, “we cannot afford to not exhaust this opportunity.”

The prospect of the US slowing the sale of ammunition to Israel is “looming in the background,” said the official, adding that there has never been an explicit threat.

“It’s communicated through back channels, more hinted. But it’s something that is happening.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, mediators told Israel the talks in Qatar were the final round of negotiations, which will end if no deal is reached.

The Doha skyline and corniche are pictured from a boat on the second day of Islam’s holy month of Ramadan in Doha on March 12, 2024. (Karim Jaafar/AFP)

Addressing the talks on Monday, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan acknowledged that the effort to secure an extended truce between Israel and Hamas through a hostage deal “has been more elusive than we would have hoped,” but insisted that the Biden administration “will keep pressing because we regard this as an urgent priority.”

“Far too little of the energy and the pressure to end this conflict has been applied to Hamas. We will keep pointing that out,” Sullivan said at a White House press briefing.

Hamas in its response last week to the latest hostage deal framework added new conditions that Israel says it cannot accept, Sullivan said, offering the most detailed response from a US official regarding the terror group’s reply last week.

“Hamas has put a proposal on the table — this is after Israel, working with Qatar, Egypt and the United States, had indicated a willingness to move forward on a six-week ceasefire in return for the release of a number of hostages, leading to further phases from there, and Hamas had given us nothing for quite some time,” Sullivan said, reiterating that there could be a deal immediately if Hamas would just agree to release roughly 40 Israeli female, elderly, and wounded hostages.

Instead, Hamas “put a proposal on the table where they’ve added a series of other conditions… The Israeli government has responded by saying they can’t just accept that. They regard some of those conditions as going too far, but that’s what a negotiation is about,” the US national security adviser continued.

“We believe that those discussions are very alive, that a deal is possible,” Sullivan said.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, March 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

An Israeli official estimated the negotiations in Doha could take at least two weeks, citing difficulties that Hamas’s foreign delegates may have in communicating with terror leaders in Gaza after more than five months of war.

On Sunday, the security cabinet held a meeting to finalize Israel’s negotiating stance before giving the delegation the go-ahead to fly to Doha for the talks.

It approved “red lines,” an Israeli official told The Times of Israel, “in order to allow the delegation to hold the negotiations.” The official would not expand on what those red lines were.

“The negotiating team didn’t get everything it asked from the cabinet concerning the breadth of mandate, but it received enough content and a framework in order to start up detailed and significant negotiations,” an official told Channel 13.

Talks had been on hold since last week, when Israel rejected a Hamas response to the latest framework for a six-week truce that would see 40 hostages released, with later stages possible to extend the break in fighting and allow more hostages to be freed. The terror group is reportedly seeking a deal for the release of hundreds of high-level Palestinian prisoners and an Israeli commitment to end fighting permanently and pull troops out of Gaza, with residents of north Gaza allowed to return home.

Israel has adamantly ruled out a permanent ceasefire and insists it will resume its declared goal of destroying Hamas once any hostage-truce deal is carried out.

An Israeli soldier on top of a tank on the border with the Gaza Strip on March 17, 2024. (AP/Ariel Schalit)

Israel has also signaled its intent to launch an offensive in the southernmost city of Rafah, Hamas’s last major stronghold in Gaza. The expected operation has strained ties with the US amid concerns over the safety of noncombatants who could be caught in the warzone. Israel has promised to act to evacuate Rafah of civilians before launching an operation in the city.

A temporary truce would bring a pause to the devastating war in Gaza, sparked by the terror group’s October 7 murderous rampage across southern Israel, when thousands of terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 253 hostages.

A weeklong ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Egypt in late November secured the release of 105 hostages, mostly women and children. Barnea was also involved in the talks that led to that lull.

The government has faced increasing pressure at home from families of hostages and their supporters who have urged reaching a deal to release the hostages as soon as possible, fearing that dragging out their captivity, already in its sixth month, presents a mounting danger to their lives.

Agencies contributed to this report.

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