Israel sends high-level team to Doha talks, seen as possible last chance for deal
Team led by heads of Mossad, Shin Bet; Hamas apparently won’t take part, will interact with mediators; Jerusalem said to demand all 33 hostages returned in first stage must be alive
A high-level team of Israeli negotiators was set to depart for renewed ceasefire talks in Doha, which are slated to start on Thursday following a major push from international mediators, and are seen as a potential last chance to reach an agreement to pause the war and free hostages in the near future.
As of Wednesday night it remained unclear whether Hamas would be participating in the two-day talks.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed on Wednesday evening that he had approved sending an Israel delegation to Qatar. The brief statement said that Netanyahu had approved “the mandate for conducting the negotiations,” without elaborating.
Officials speaking anonymously to Hebrew media outlets, including Channel 12 and Walla, said the team’s mandate had been slightly expanded, in a manner that would enable it to conduct Thursday’s negotiations, though they noted it may not be sufficient to seal a deal.
“We received some minimal wiggling room,” one unnamed source told Channel 12. “It’s something to start with, but might not be enough.”
The Kan broadcaster, by contrast, said Netanyahu had given the team “reasonable” leeway, and Haaretz and Channel 13 said the mandate was flexible enough on core issues to enable progress.
A spokesman for the prime minister said that Mossad chief David Barnea and Shin Bet head Ronen Bar would head up the delegation, and that IDF Maj. Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon and senior Netanyahu adviser Ophir Falk would also travel to Doha.
A US source familiar with the negotiations said CIA director William Burns was scheduled to take part in the talks.
Netanyahu reportedly convened a meeting Wednesday afternoon with Barnea, Bar, Alon and Falk to discuss the approach to the Doha talks.
The Israeli framework for a deal issued on May 27 includes three stages, with the first six-week period seeing a pause in Israeli ground operations and withdrawal of troops in exchange for the release of 33 hostages in the categories of women, children, elderly and wounded, alongside Israel freeing 990 Palestinian prisoners.
In a possible point of contention, Channel 12 reported Wednesday that Israel is demanding that all 33 hostages to be released in the first stage must be alive, and has drawn up a list of the names it expects to be included, which includes female soldiers. The original terms of the deal said that the first 33 people released would include “living and human remains.”
Meanwhile, a senior Hamas official told Reuters on Wednesday that the terror group would not be attending the talks, though another official speaking to The Associated Press left the door open.
Hamas’s Osama Hamdan told AP that the group was losing faith in the US ability to mediate a ceasefire in Gaza, and said that it would only take part in the talks if they focused on implementing a proposal detailed by US President Joe Biden in May and endorsed internationally.
Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri, however, told Reuters that a delegation from the terror group would not be at the talks.
“Going to new negotiations allows the occupation to impose new conditions and employ the maze of negotiation to conduct more massacres,” Abu Zuhri told Reuters. “Hamas is committed to the proposal presented to it on July 2, which is based on the UN Security Council resolution and the Biden speech and the movement is prepared to immediately begin discussion over a mechanism to implement it.”
Officials said, however, that even if Hamas does not directly take part in the talks, its chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya is based in Doha and the group has open channels with Egypt and Qatar. A source familiar with the matter said Hamas wants the mediators to come back to it with a “serious response” from Israel, and will then move ahead with negotiations.
The talks in Doha are slated to get underway following a joint statement last week from the US, Qatar and Egypt demanding a deal be sealed and implemented without further delay, and setting a summit date on August 15. Talks have been centered for two months around an Israeli proposal from late May laid out in a speech by Biden on May 31.
Washington and regional mediators have since tried to finalize a deal but have run into repeated obstacles, with both sides regularly accusing the other of adding new demands and stipulations to the original framework.
According to a Channel 12 report on Wednesday citing unnamed sources, Biden administration officials made phone calls to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and Shas leader Aryeh Deri throughout the day to stress the importance of finalizing a deal.
The US officials highlighted the connection between reaching a deal and the ability to avert an escalation in hostilities with Iran and Hezbollah, the TV report said.
Senior US envoy Amos Hochstein, visiting Beirut on Wednesday, sent a similar message, saying reaching a deal could help end the 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israel and Hezbollah.
Hochstein said that he and parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, discussed “the framework agreement that’s on the table for a Gaza ceasefire, and he and I agreed there is no more time to waste and there’s no more valid excuses from any party for any further delay.”
“The deal would also help enable a diplomatic resolution here in Lebanon and that would prevent an outbreak of a wider war,” Hochstein added. “We have to take advantage of this window for diplomatic action and diplomatic solutions. That time is now.”
Meanwhile, IDF chief Lt. Gen Herzi Halevi visited troops in the Philadelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border area on Wednesday, suggesting that even if a hostage-ceasefire deal would require them to leave the area, they’ll be ready for any scenario.
“We are preparing options for whatever the political echelon decides,” said Halevi. “If it decides that we’re staying in Philadelphi, we’ll be able to stay there and stay strong. If it decides that we must monitor [the area] and carry out raids whenever we have an indication, we will know how to do it.”
Halevi said that holding the Philadelphi Corridor is “important, because it deals with [Hamas’s] force build-up,” as the terror group has used the border to smuggle weapons from Egypt.
While the original framework deal said that Israel would withdraw troops “eastwards away from densely populated areas along the borders in all areas of the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu has since demanded to maintain a presence along the Philadelphi Corridor during the lull in fighting.
Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.
