Netanyahu accused of undercutting Israeli credibility in Gaza truce talks
Officials say assurances to Qatar, Egypt and US made by security chiefs representing Jerusalem have been abandoned once the prime minister is consulted, gumming up negotiations
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
DOHA, Qatar — Israel’s negotiating team suffers from a lack of credibility in the indirect talks with Hamas for a ceasefire and hostage release deal, three officials from mediating countries told The Times of Israel this week.
At multiple points throughout the talks, Israeli negotiators made assurances to Qatari, Egyptian and American mediators regarding elements of the deal that Jerusalem was prepared to accept. But the Israelis subsequently walked back on those commitments after consulting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the officials said.
An Israeli negotiating team led by Mossad chief David Barnea, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and IDF hostage point-man Nitzan Alon has been involved in months of on-again, off-again talks in Cairo and Doha aimed at reaching a deal to halt fighting in Gaza and free the hundred-plus hostages kidnapped from Israel on October 7 still being held hostage there.
Despite intense domestic and international pressure, and US officials insisting that the sides are on the cusp of an agreement, Israel and Hamas have failed to come to terms, and even reports of progress have been shrouded in a fog of competing claims.
The official said the Israeli team had told mediators for weeks that a deal would be all but certain if Hamas agreed to retreat from its demand for an up-front Israeli commitment to a permanent ceasefire upon the commencement of a staged hostage release deal.
The mediators succeeded in convincing Hamas to retreat from the demand last month, leaving only marginal issues to work out, and the Israeli negotiating team signaled that it would be possible to move forward with an agreement, the official said.
But Netanyahu then issued a series of new demands in late July, undercutting concessions already agreed to by the negotiators, the three officials said.
Netanyahu insists that he has not moved from the ceasefire proposal he authorized on May 27, though the text of the offer obtained by The Times of Israel indicates otherwise.
Netanyahu’s demands include his insistence that Israeli troops remain in the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border to prevent smuggling, including at the Rafah Crossing. He is also seeking a new mechanism to be established to prevent armed Palestinians from accessing northern Gaza and for additional vetos on the Palestinian prisoners Hamas is seeking in exchange for the remaining 115 hostages in Gaza, the officials said.
Before the new Israeli demands were formally presented in Rome on July 27, the Israeli negotiating team had been in talks with mediators about the IDF withdrawing from the Philadelphi Corridor and installing security mechanisms to prevent the smuggling of weapons from Egypt into Gaza, said one of the officials, a diplomat. The mediators were therefore surprised to subsequently hear Netanyahu begin publicly speaking about the need for the IDF to remain indefinitely in the corridor.
“The Israeli negotiators would tell the mediators one thing in the room and then Netanyahu would say the opposite in public,” said a second official, also a diplomat.
Israeli negotiators would then tell the mediators that Netanyahu’s comments were for domestic consumption, “but this impacted the talks,” the second diplomat said, indicating that it led Hamas and the mediators to doubt Israel’s intentions.
While in the spring, the mediators felt that Hamas was the main obstacle to an agreement, the current consensus is that Netanyahu has become the primary obstacle to a deal, the two diplomats said, pointing to the new demands submitted by the premier along with last week’s assassination of Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh.
“It’s clear that these are all delaying tactics; every time we get close to a deal, more attacks happen. Haniyeh was someone who wanted a deal,” the second diplomat said.
“Right now, the obstacles are coming from Netanyahu. It’s possible that Hamas will respond to the assassination by delaying and becoming the obstacle like they were in April,” the second diplomat added.
Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Under pressure
Two other officials familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel on Monday that the hostage talks were on hold until after Iran retaliates for Haniyeh’s assassination and until after the terror group selects a replacement for the slain politburo chief.
On Tuesday, Hamas announced that the terror group’s Gaza-based leader Yahya Sinwar would replace Haniyeh.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said that talks had continued despite the mounting crisis following the assassination, told reporters that Sinwar “has been and remains the primary decider” regarding a ceasefire deal.
Analysts believe Sinwar has been more reluctant than Haniyeh to agree to a ceasefire deal.
Speaking before the announcement, the two diplomats lamented that Hamas would likely up its demands following the assassination of Haniyeh — widely attributed to Israel — noting that this is what the terror group did in March after the IDF launched a major counter-terrorism operation in Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital compound.
The two diplomats also rejected the Israeli assertion that military pressure has helped push Hamas into more concessions.
One of the diplomats revealed that days after Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, in which some 1,200 Israelis were massacred and 251 were taken hostage, Hamas told the mediators that it was prepared to release all civilian hostages in exchange for a one-week pause in the fighting.
Israel dismissed the offer and intensified its then-only-aerial campaign in Gaza, the diplomat said, adding that Hamas went on to raise its demands, insisting on Israel releasing security prisoners in exchange for civilian hostages.
In November, the two sides agreed to a week-long truce during which Hamas freed 105 civilian hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian security prisoners released from Israeli jails.
One of the diplomats claimed that Hamas’s July decision to cave on its main demand for an upfront Israeli commitment to a permanent ceasefire was a result of engagement from Qatari and Egyptian mediators, along with Turkey and Iran, who all urged the terror group to compromise in order to reach an agreement.
The diplomat went further, claiming that Iran wants the war to end so that it can resume negotiations with the US on its nuclear program, which were derailed by Hamas’s October 7 onslaught.
While the diplomat referred to the “urging” of Qatar and other countries that played a role in swaying Hamas, they insisted that Doha doesn’t have any leverage over the terror group. The hold that Qatar did have over Hamas came in the form of the monthly payments Doha made at the request of Israel and the US to help stabilize the humanitarian situation in Gaza. But those transfers haven’t been made since October 7, the diplomat said.
The $30 million payments dated back to 2018, but in recent years, Qatar began expressing apprehension about continuing the transfers absent a path to a two-state solution, the two diplomats said.
In April 2023, Doha notified Israel that it planned to cut Gaza humanitarian aid payments by half. Only after the US intervened did Doha agree to maintain the rate of the aid payments.
In exchange, Israel agreed to pursue an alternative arrangement in the following months, the diplomat said, acknowledging that this process too was derailed by Hamas’s October 7 attack. A US official confirmed the diplomat’s account.
