Shas’s Deri: ‘Good chance’ that hostage deal will happen, but too early to know

There’s a “good chance” that a hostage deal will happen, Shas chairman Aryeh Deri tells ultra-Orthodox news channel Kikar HaShabbat.

Discussing the talks that took place in Paris over the weekend regarding a potential hostage release and temporary ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, Deri says that while there is a “good chance of a deal [happening], we are still far from it.”

“We want to create a good deal that will achieve several goals but also be accepted by the Israeli public,” he says of the difficulties coming up in the negotiations. “It’s not a simple deal, we don’t have feedback from Hamas yet, everything we do is via mediators.”

He adds that while things are moving in a positive direction right now, it’s too early to tell for sure and everything could still change.