From the Liveblog of
Thursday, February 15, 2024
Hezbollah-affiliated website publishes details of reported Israeli truce offer
Al Mayadeen, a Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese news website, publishes what it claims are the details of an Israeli truce offer for the Gaza Strip.
According to an article published on Wednesday and citing Hamas sources, the Israeli proposal would include three stages. The first would last 35 days, with an optional one-week extension, and would see an IDF withdrawal from “densely populated” areas inside the Strip – but not from all inhabited areas – and a “rehabilitation” of hospitals under Israeli supervision – but not their reconstruction.
IAF warplanes and surveillance aircraft would refrain from flying over Gaza for six hours a day, and 500 aid trucks would enter the Strip daily. Fifty wounded Palestinians above the age of 50 would be allowed to leave Gaza each day for treatment.
In the first phase, Israel would release three Palestinian prisoners, including some serving long sentences, in exchange for each of an unspecified number of Israeli hostage, chosen from civilians and female soldiers.
The second stage, according to the Hamas sources quoted by al Mayadeen, would last 30 days and would see an exchange of an undetermined number of Palestinian detainees in return for hostages. Israeli forces would not withdraw from Gaza at this stage, but Israel would be willing to “consider” the return of displaced civilians to their place of residence, according to the Lebanese outlet.
No details are reported on the time frame or the terms for the third stage. The guarantors of the agreement proposed by Israel, according to al Mayadeen, would be the US, Egypt and Qatar, but not Turkey and Russia, which had been requested by Hamas.
The latest round of negotiations in Cairo, attended by the US, Egypt, Israel and Qatar, ended on Tuesday without a breakthrough. Israel denied that it presented a new offer, with officials in the Prime Minister’s Office saying that the Israeli delegation, led by Mossad head David Barnea and Shin Bet director Ronen Bar, was merely “there to listen.”
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly ruled out sending an Israeli delegation back to Cairo for further hostage negotiations.
On the same day, senior Hamas official Muhammad Nazzal accused Netanyahu of thwarting the Cairo talks in an interview with Al Jazeera, and of trying to achieve the release of the hostages without paying a price. The terror group bigwig said, however, that negotiations are not at a dead end.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said in a statement today that any agreement between Israel and Hamas should secure a ceasefire and an Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza in addition to achieving a serious prisoner swap deal.
