Israel’s negotiators want return to 2012 understandings, TV report says

Israel’s delegation at the ceasefire talks in Cairo is basically demanding a return to the understandings that were agreed upon at the end of Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012, Israel’s Channel 2 reports.

These are arrangements that would enable Hamas to claim that it has made gains, the report notes.

The arrangements provide for an end to terrorism, and for eased access to Gaza. In practice, the report says, Israel would supervise any access to Gaza from its side, and Egypt would oversee any access from its side. And Israel and Egypt would work together to prevent Hamas from rearming.

In return for information on Israeli soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin, who are dead but whose bodies are in Gaza, Hamas is demanding that Israel give it a list of Palestinians agents who work for Israel in the West Bank, Channel 2 also announces. It adds that Shin Bet intelligence chief Yoram Cohen, one of the five-member Israeli team in Cairo, is hardly likely to do that.

In further updates from the talks, Channel 2 says Egypt wants to have Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority deploy 1,000 security troops at the Rafah Border Crossing, and that Abbas would have a hard time mustering that many men.

It says Israel is ready to double the number of trucks bringing humanitarian supplies into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing — from 250 a day to 500. Israel is prepared to let building materials into the Strip, under careful supervision, but no “double use” materials, such as iron and various chemicals, which might be diverted to the Hamas terror infrastructure.

The TV reports says there are deep divisions within the Palestinian delegation — between representatives of Abbas and Hamas, and also between Hamas delegates from Gaza and those from elsewhere. The Gaza delegates are reportedly more inclined to compromise on a deal.