Netanyahu dispatches top negotiators to Qatar talks amid push to seal hostage deal
Delegation to Doha will include heads of Mossad and Shin Bet and hostage point man; Hamas sources claim ceasefire accord is ‘completed’ and awaiting Netanyahu’s final approval
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced Saturday evening that he had decided to send a high-level delegation to Qatar to join efforts to seal a hostage-ceasefire deal with the Hamas terror group.
The team departing Saturday night includes Mossad chief David Barnea, Shin Bet director Ron Bar, IDF hostage point man Maj. Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon, and Netanyahu’s political adviser Ophir Falk.
The decision was made after Netanyahu held a situation assessment on the ongoing hostage talks. He was joined at the meeting by Defense Minister Israel Katz, Israel’s security chiefs, and officials from the Biden administration and incoming Trump administration.
Netanyahu met with Trump’s incoming US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff in Jerusalem earlier in the day. Witkoff met in Doha on Friday with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who briefed him on the ongoing negotiations, before he traveled to Israel to meet with Netanyahu. Witkoff was set to return to Qatar to participate in the negotiations, a source familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel, along with the senior Israeli delegation.
According to Hebrew media reports, Witkoff emphasized to Netanyahu during their meeting Saturday that Trump wants a hostage deal by his inauguration on January 20. Channel 12 news said that Trump’s envoy stressed that both sides must show flexibility to get an agreement across the finish line.
According to a report in Israel Hayom, at the end of his meeting with Netanyahu, the two held a conference call with current White House Middle East envoy Brett McGurk, who is leading the US delegation in Qatar.
Hamas sources claimed Saturday that a deal had been reached and was awaiting Netanyahu’s final approval.
Channel 13 news quoted two sources involved in the negotiations as saying that Netanyahu decided to send Israel’s most senior negotiators to the talks amid “general cautious progress” in the talks with mediators in Qatar.
A senior Israeli official told the network that Hamas has still not provided a list of living hostages to Israel.
A senior source in Hamas told the Qatari outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadeed on Saturday that the proposed deal had essentially been completed, with mediators now waiting for Netanyahu’s approval before announcing the agreement.
There was no outside confirmation of the claim.
The outlet also reported that under the deal, Israel would not fully withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border until the last day of the agreement’s final phase, after gradually pulling out forces during earlier stages.
The source said Hamas had agreed to put off several unresolved points of contention with Israel until a later phase of the deal, provided the next stages are implemented without delay and as required.
Additionally, the source said talks were now “at the closest point [yet] to completing the agreement,” adding that Hamas and mediators were expecting a response from Israel to come on Saturday.
Israel has previously maintained it would not agree to any ceasefire that would force it to end the war entirely, as the three-phase deal would ostensibly ultimately require.
The Qatari report also added that if Israel did agree to the deal, the mediating countries would hold a press conference announcing the details, timetable and start date of the agreement.
The reports came after officials in Washington expressed cautious optimism on Friday about the prospects of closing a hostage-ceasefire deal before the end of US President Joe Biden’s term.
CIA Director William Burns assessed the ongoing negotiations in Doha as “quite serious,” while White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said he believed a hostage deal was possible before January 20.
