From the Liveblog of
Friday, August 2, 2024
Netanyahu authorizes negotiators to resume hostage talks in Cairo tomorrow or Sunday
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has authorized Israeli negotiators to travel to Cairo tomorrow night in efforts to advance a hostage-ceasefire deal, his office says in a statement.
The statement is issued immediately after a Channel 12 news report claimed he rejected calls from his security chiefs to seize the current opportunity for a deal, and after Axios reported that US President Joe Biden urged Netanyahu in their call yesterday to stop escalating tensions in the region and move immediately toward a deal.
The PMO says the Channel 12 report is false, specifically dismissing the claim that Mossad chief Barnea said there is a deal ready and that Israel must take it.
The PMO statement adds that it is false to suggest that Hamas has accepted terms for a deal. “It is not even clear that Hamas has withdrawn from its demand that Israel commit [up front] to ending the war and completely withdrawing from the Strip, and [that Israel] not be able to return to fighting,” the statement says.
“Moreover, agreement has not yet been reached on the number of living hostages that would be freed, on Israel remaining deployed on the Philadelphi Route [between Gaza and Egypt], on a mechanism to prevent the entry of terrorists and arms via the Netzarim Route [and into northern Gaza], and other important additional details.”
The statement adds that all the demands Israel is insisting on are “in accordance with the May 27 Israeli proposal.” Contrary to what is claimed, it says, Netanyahu “has not added a thing” to that proposal, whereas “Hamas is demanding dozens of changes.”
Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar “is the obstacle to a deal,” the statement says, “and not the prime minister, who is prepared to go a long way to free the hostages that are so important to him, while preserving Israel’s security and preventing conditions that would allow Hamas to regain control of the Strip, threaten Israel, and carry out more of the October 7 horrors.”
It is “precisely because of a desire [for a viable deal],” the statement concludes, that Netanyahu has now instructed negotiators to travel to Cairo.
