Israel submits latest Gaza proposal to US, but officials warn PM’s new demands won’t fly
Some officials say fresh clauses could be ‘a death blow to negotiations’; Israeli delegation set to depart for Rome Sunday
Israel relayed a new proposal for a hostage release deal with Hamas to the White House on Saturday. But sources cited by Hebrew media said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest demands could thwart the negotiations.
According to Channel 12 news, the proposal demands an inspection mechanism be put in place to ensure combatants are not able to move to the Strip’s north; sees Israel remaining on the Gaza-Egypt border during the first phase of the deal; and insists on Israel receiving a list of all living hostages Hamas will release as part of the deal.
The report quoted a top Israeli official as expressing doubt that the proposal would even make it past the Arab mediators. “It’s doubtful they will pass the proposal on to Hamas given the substantive change to it,” said the official.
Walla news also cited unnamed officials in the Israeli negotiating team and in the security establishment as saying Hamas was unlikely to agree to the new demands and that this could lead to a crisis in talks.
An official in the Israeli negotiating team was quoted by Haaretz as saying that the demand for an inspection mechanism to prevent the return of gunmen to the north was “a death blow to the negotiations.”
“The security establishment will be able to deal with the security challenges without the mechanism,” said the source, adding that Netanyahu was “thoughtlessly risking hostages’ lives.”
The new offer came as Mossad chief David Barnea was set to meet in Rome Sunday with the talks’ mediators — CIA chief William Burns, Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani.
An unidentified Palestinian official told Kan news that the Israeli offer was designed to “create roadblocks in the talks,” and was effectively Israel’s way of saying no without saying no.
A senior Palestinian official quoted in the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Mayadeen news outlet Saturday indicated that Hamas considers any new proposal dead on arrival.
Meanwhile, Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zanguaker and a prominent activist for the hostages’ release, accused Netanyahu on Saturday of impeding progress toward a deal with the latest offer.
“There is a deal on the table, and Netanyahu is assassinating it,” she said at a weekly demonstration outside IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv. “Today, he conveyed a deal [proposal] that continues the foot-dragging, which the security establishment has already warned would lead to a crisis in the talks.”
Israel’s new conditions track with three of the “non-negotiables” Netanyahu listed in a July 7 statement: maximizing the number of living hostages to be released, preventing the return of gunmen northward, and stopping Hamas’s arms smuggling from Egypt.
Channel 12 reported on Wednesday that Netanyahu was trying to secure a signed, written commitment from US President Joe Biden that the US would uphold Israel’s right to resume fighting until its war aims are reached — the fourth of Netanyahu’s “non-negotiables.”
Israel’s latest offer was relayed to the White House as Netanyahu was wrapping up a visit to the US, where he has been since Monday.
Biden and Netanyahu met with American hostages’ relatives on Thursday. At the meeting, the US president said: “I am telling you as a Biden that I am all in, and I am going to do all within my power to make it happen.”
Jonathan Dekel-Chen, father of hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, said after the meeting that “we feel probably more optimistic than we have since the first round of releases in late November.”
The talks have failed to secure a truce in Gaza and release of hostages there since the weeklong ceasefire in November, which saw Hamas release 105 captives in return for 240 Palestinian prisoners. The current round of talks is based on Israel’s May 27 proposal, outlined by Biden in a May 31 speech.
It is believed that 111 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas during the October 7 attack remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 39 confirmed dead by the Israel Defense Force.
The shock assault saw thousands of Hamas-led terrorists storm southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people, sparking the war in Gaza.
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.
