US official: Hamas only got Israeli proposal last night; meets all Hamas demands with ‘very minor adjustments’

A senior Biden administration official briefing reporters on US President Joe Biden’s speech earlier today says Israel was able to make the hostage deal proposal that Washington is pushing Hamas to accept “because of some of the success they’ve had in degrading Hamas military capacity.”

“I don’t think this offer would have been possible three months ago,” the senior official says.

The official says the Israeli proposal is very detailed and is four and a half pages long. Each of the three phases is roughly six weeks long.

The official acknowledges that the negotiations that will commence during the first six-week phase will be very difficult and require the sides to agree on a ratio for how many Palestinian security prisoners will be released in exchange for the remaining male Israeli hostages.

“It’s fair to say that if [we got to] phase two and phase three, Israel will have some guarantees about its own security [so] that Gaza can no longer be a platform for terrorism and threats against Israel,” the official says.

“Phase three outlines a pretty extensive three-to-five year reconstruction program for Gaza. It’s fully backed by the US, the international community and others,” the senior official says.

“We have to work to reform the PA in the West Bank, which is ongoing and to having an interim administration in Gaza that can help with stabilization and pathway forward there,” the official says.

The official says the latest Israeli proposal is almost identical to the demands previously laid out by Hamas.

“This is now at the stage where Hamas has said they’d be prepared to do deal X, and what is now on the table is basically that, with some very minor adjustments,” the senior US official says.

Asked about Hamas’s statement yesterday that it would not be willing to negotiate further with Israel unless the IDF halts all fighting in Gaza, the senior administration official downplays the threat, suggesting there’s a difference between what the terror group says publicly and what it says privately.

The official notes that Hamas only received the Israeli proposal last night and will likely need time to make a decision.

“But [Biden] felt very strongly… That it was time to lay out very clearly what is offered in this proposal, and particularly in those first six weeks,” the senior official says.