US official says talks temporarily broke down over Hamas refusal to provide list of hostages
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
A senior Biden administration official briefing reporters following the announcement of a ceasefire-hostage deal says that talks broke down last month after Hamas refused to provide a list of the 33 hostages it was prepared to release in the first phase of the agreement.
Hamas asked for a one-week ceasefire in order to come up with the list, but Israel and the mediators held firm in rejecting the idea.
The terror group managed to submit a list at the end of December, which allowed talks to proceed, says the senior US official, who doesn’t go as far as to acknowledge the list does not specify which hostages are alive and which are dead.
Hamas officials claimed they lost contact with many of those holding hostages and insisted the terror group could not confirm the status of all hostages without a halt of Israeli fire.
Shortly after the list was produced by Hamas, though, Biden’s top advisers traveled to the region to jumpstart and finalize negotiations. On January 5, White House Mideast czar Brett McGurk arrived in Doha, where he has remained ever since, participating in 18 hours or more of negotiations each day, the US official says.
The talks included the drawing up of detailed maps showing Israel’s phased withdrawal from Gaza and going through lists of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners slated for potential release.
On Thursday, mediators will hold a meeting in Cairo to further discuss the deal’s implementation. Qatar’s prime minister said representatives from the three mediating countries will serve on an enforcement committee to ensure the deal is implemented properly.
After the deal was announced, US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a warm call in which they reflected on the horrors of October 7 and the plight of the hostages as well as the joy of being able to reunite them with their families, according to the senior US official, who says Netanyahu also noted that he and Biden had experienced a significant number of historical moments throughout their 44 years knowing each other.