TV report highlights key areas where Hamas proposal differs from Israeli-backed offer

A Channel 12 report highlights some of the key differences between the reported terms of the Egyptian-crafted, Israeli-backed hostage and truce proposal conveyed to Hamas late last month, and the proposal (Arabic) Hamas issued last night, which it claimed constituted its acceptance of a permanent ceasefire.

Israel has rejected the Hamas terms and said they do not meet Israel’s vital demands.

Among the differences cited in the TV report:

The Hamas proposal would see the release of 33 Israeli hostages, alive or dead, in the first, 42-day phase of the three-phase deal, whereas the Israeli text requires the release of 33 living hostages.

The hostages would also be released at a slower pace than in the Israeli-backed proposal, with three to be freed on the third day, and then three more every seven days. The Hamas proposal also removes the veto Israel demanded on the release of certain Palestinian security prisoners, and instead gives Hamas the right to choose who will go free.

The combination of those two changes potentially means Hamas could secure the release of some of the most dangerous mass murderers and iconic terror chiefs from Israeli jails very early on in the deal, before many hostages are freed.

The Hamas version raises the number of Palestinian security prisoners to be freed in exchange for each hostage in the first phase.

The Hamas proposal provides for the free movement of all Gazans back to the north of the Strip, without security checks as required by Israel to prevent Hamas gunmen from returning.

The TV report also claims the Hamas proposal requires Israel to announce an end to the war in the first phase of the deal. In fact, the Hamas text says that the framework agreement “aims for… the return to a sustainable calm that will achieve a permanent ceasefire,” and requires a cessation of Israeli military operations in the first phase and thereafter. Significantly, Hamas said soon after delivering its response on Monday night that it regards itself as having accepted terms for an end to the war, whereas both the Israeli-backed text and the Hamas response refer to restoring “sustainable calm.”

Another change between the two proposals, not highlighted in the TV report, is that Hamas demands the release of all Palestinian security inmates who were freed in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner deal and have since been rearrested.

The Hamas proposal also does not specify how many Palestinian security prisoners it would demand in the second phase of the deal, when remaining living Israeli men are to be freed, but requires that Israel reach an agreement on that issue in the midst of the first phase, before all the first-phase hostages are freed.

The TV report also says Israelis “at the highest level” feared last night that the US had given some kind of guarantee to Hamas via the mediators that the deal would indeed constitute an end to the war. The Biden administration, for its part, reportedly responded that it saw the Hamas proposal as “a kind of counter-offer.”

It says “very tense discussions” between Israel and the US continued yesterday and today. Senior Israeli officials urged their US counterparts not to be publicly supportive of the Hamas terms, it says, while the US “didn’t quite accept that message.”

Finally, it suggests Hamas’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar is intent on attaining a permanent ceasefire before all living hostages are freed, because he fears he would otherwise be vulnerable to a potential Israeli-targeted strike on him.