Hamas said to submit response to final hostage deal draft, without reservations

The Hamas terror group has submitted its response to the hostage deal draft, without attaching further reservations, the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news site reports.

The unsourced report does not give further details.

Multiple Hebrew media outlets interpret the one-line Al-Arabiya report, if accurate, as meaning that Hamas has accepted the deal.

Channel 12 news also says that two government ministries have been told to prepare to absorb released hostages in the coming days.

It also says that Hamas has been demanding the release of an “astronomical” number of security prisoners in exchange for 9-11 living elderly and infirm male hostages to be freed in the first phase of a deal.

Earlier reports said Doha had handed both parties a “final” draft of the agreement, following a breakthrough in the early hours of the morning in talks between Israel’s negotiating team, Qatar’s prime minister, and US President-elect Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, who recently joined the negotiations.

Israel’s Channel 12 reported a short while ago that the draft was received by Israel overnight and that it was broadly acceptable to Israel. It said the draft had been approved by Hamas leaders abroad, and “everything” now depended on the agreement of Muhammad Sinwar, Hamas’s de facto leader in Gaza.