Hostage talks stuck after US proposal bent too far toward Israel — officials

The hostage deal proposal submitted last week by the Biden administration aimed at bridging the gaps between Israel and Hamas went too far to accommodate the positions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding continued IDF presence in the Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors, two Arab officials from mediating country and a third official involved in the talks tells The Times of Israel.

As such, the talks are at an impasse, and an Arab official laments that there’s no point in holding another planned high-level gathering of negotiators later this week in Cairo unless the US pressures Netanyahu to come down from his new demands and amends its bridging proposal accordingly.

A second Arab official expresses his bewilderment at US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s repeated public insistence in recent days that Netanyahu backs the US bridging proposal, arguing that this inaccurately frames Hamas as the lone obstructionist party.

The Arab official points to comments that the Israeli premier has continued making about the need for a permanent Israeli military presence in the Philadelphi Corridor to prevent weapons smuggling from Egypt into Gaza.

A third official involved in the talks says the US bridging proposal doesn’t allow for a permanent Israeli presence in Philadelphi but also doesn’t rule out such deployment entirely.

But Netanyahu went further in comments to a group of hawkish hostage families earlier this week, talking about permanent IDF presence in Philadelphi, which was not part of the bridging proposal and harms efforts to maintain talks with Hamas, the official says.

Hamas has made clear after forgoing its demand for an up-front Israeli ceasefire commitment that it won’t accept continued Israeli presence in Philadelphi and Netzarim, “so [Netanyahu] is going to have to decide whether he wants to stick to these new demands or whether he wants to bring hostages home alive, says the official.