Official: Israel won’t accept 5-year Gaza truce, Qatar isn’t helping hostage talks

An Israeli official said Monday that there is “no chance” Israel would accept the five-year truce proposal with the Hamas terror group that is currently being discussed by Arab mediators.

“There is no chance that we will agree to a hudna with Hamas that just allows it to rearm, recover and to continue its war against Israel,” the official said, referring to a statement from a Hamas official that the group is to willing release of all remaining hostages in exchange for a five-year cessation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip.

“Hudna” is an Arabic term denoting a prolonged period of strategic calm that falls between a ceasefire and a peace treaty. The term has been used to describe periods of calm between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in the past few decades.

“Hamas is ready for an exchange of prisoners in a single batch and a truce for five years,” the Hamas official told AFP last week, on condition of anonymity.

The group has consistently demanded that a truce agreement must lead to the end of the war set off by their October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a prisoner exchange, and the immediate and sufficient entry of humanitarian aid into the Strip.

Israel has refused, in any agreement, to end the war or leave Hamas in power as the enclave’s governing body, arguing that the group will use any prolonged ceasefire to rearm and carry out another attack on Israel, akin to that of October 7.

Meanwhile, Reuters cited two Egyptian security sources Monday as claiming there had been a “significant breakthrough” in the talks for a ceasefire and hostage deal. The sources said there was a consensus on a long-term ceasefire in Gaza, though some sticking points remained, including the question of Hamas’s arms.

Israeli reports quickly poured cold water on the report though, with multiple outlets citing officials denying the details. The Walla news site cited an unnamed senior Israeli source saying there had been no breakthrough, and the Ynet news site cited Israeli sources saying there hadn’t been meaningful progress and Jerusalem wouldn’t agree to a yearslong truce that doesn’t include the disarmament of Hamas.

The Israeli official who dismissed the five-year truce prospect also said Monday that Qatar has “recently had an influence that was not positive on negotiations” to free hostages from Gaza, echoing reports in Hebrew media over the weekend that Doha has been sabotaging the talks by urging Hamas to reject a recent Egyptian ceasefire proposal.

A non-Qatari Arab official on Sunday denied those reports, telling The Times of Israel that they were being “manufactured” by Israeli officials seeking to deflect blame for the failure of the talks away from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Qatar has been a key mediator in hostage release-ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, following the outbreak of the war, when the Iran-backed organization — the de facto government of the Gaza Strip — invaded the Jewish state, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.

Turning to Israel’s support of US President Donald Trump’s plan to relocate Palestinians from Gaza, the Israeli official said Monday that “emigration is still not happening in large numbers. We have appeals from Western countries that want to bring their citizens out. Canada turned to us and said it has family members it wants to bring to Canada.”

Israel will let out anyone who wants to leave of their own volition, the official said, claiming that there are countries willing to accept them.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza is still designed to slowly pressure Hamas in order to push it to accept Israel’s terms for a hostage deal, the official added, “but our patience isn’t endless.”

Trump stunned the region in February by proposing the mass displacement of war-ravaged Gaza’s population so that the US could take over the territory for real estate development.

Netanyahu has voiced support for the idea, calling it “remarkable,” and Israel has reportedly been exploring options for countries that would be willing to take in large numbers of Palestinian refugees from Gaza.

The Palestinians, as well as Arab and Islamic nations, have rejected Trump’s proposal.

Speaking to reporters, the official also defended the Foreign Ministry’s campaign to have the Bank of Israel cancel NIS 200 banknotes in order to harm Hamas finances.

“Israel’s duty, when fighting Hamas, is to take all possible means to collapse the economic system, and this system is based on this money,” said the official.

The official estimated that Hamas holds NIS 4-5 billion ($1.1-1.37 billion) in cash, mainly in NIS 200 notes. Some of that money is from a Hamas robbery of $70 million from the Bank of Palestine last year.

“Hamas is at a point of economic decline following the lack of aid trucks in the last two months, from which it used to make a profit,” the official added. “This is a very serious opportunity to collapse Hamas that has not been seriously examined to date.”

The Bank of Israel summarily rejected the idea last week.

Qatari PM: Israeli blockade of Gaza aid a ‘stain’ on world

Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said Monday that Israel’s aid blockade on the Gaza Strip aims to achieve political goals at the cost of Palestinian lives.

“What has been happening in the Gaza Strip for more than a year and a half offers painful lessons,” Al-Thani said at the opening of the 2025 Global Security Forum in Doha.

“The death of children from hunger and cold is exploited as a tool to achieve narrow political objectives, while an entire population is besieged and denied the most basic rights to receive aid, without any accountability,” he was quoted as saying in a statement shared by Qatar’s Foreign Ministry.

Al-Thani said at the forum that “what is most painful, and a stain on the conscience of the entire world, is that food and medicine have become weapons in this war.”

Israel announced Sunday that it would not participate in oral proceedings this week at the International Court of Justice on the country’s humanitarian obligations toward Palestinians, including the provision of aid to Gaza.

Israel strictly controls all inflows of international aid for the 2 million-plus Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. It halted aid deliveries to Gaza on March 2 after the collapse of a ceasefire and hostage release deal, and said it will not resume assistance until Hamas releases the captives.

Earlier this month, the Ynet news site reported that Israel will begin to allow some humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip to avoid international law violations and future legal problems for commanders who take part in the military operation.

The report said that the IDF “made it clear to the political leadership” that at some point there will be no choice but to resume the supply of food, fuel and medicine to Gaza.

Fifty-nine hostages remain in captivity, of whom 24 are believed to be alive, according to Israeli intelligence assessments.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said on Monday that more than 52,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between combatants and civilians. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.