From the Liveblog of
Thursday, September 5, 2024
US: Release of Palestinian prisoners, IDF deployment in Philadelphi are remaining obstacles to ceasefire
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
A senior Biden administration official says the remaining two obstacles to a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas pertain to the list of Palestinian security prisoners Hamas is seeking to free and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border.
“What Hamas has been demanding here, the Israelis have come forward to meet the terms as best they can,” the senior Biden official says in a briefing with reporters, adding that the terror group has made this part of negotiations “a pretty frustrating process.”
“Until that is worked out, you’re not going to have a deal,” he says.
Further harming the process was Hamas’s execution of six Israeli hostages last week, the official says, explaining that they had been negotiating based on a list of hostages that subsequently shrunk.
The killings are “coloring the discussions and has brought a sense of urgency to the process, but it has also called into question Hamas’s is readiness to do a deal of any kind,” he adds.
Also part of this section of the deal is the exit of both wounded Gazan civilians along with Hamas fighters for treatment abroad, per the terror group’s demands, the official says.
The other part that remains under dispute is regarding the IDF’s withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor, the senior US official explains, adding that the nine-mile border stretch is not mentioned in the text of the proposal.
“A dispute emerged whether the Philadelphia Corridor, which is effectively a road on the border of Gaza and Egypt, is a densely populated area,” the senior administration official says.
In recent weeks, Israel produced a proposal under which it would significantly reduce its military presence along the Philadelphi, which the US official says “is technically consistent with the deal.”
But Hamas has rejected the new demand regarding the Philadelphi Corridor, which indeed had not been part of Israel’s original May proposal, even in map form.
“It’s become a bit of a political debate in Israel,” the official laments in a reference to how Netanyahu has aggressively campaigned on the need for Israel to remain in the corridor in recent days and weeks.
