Security chiefs discuss hostage deal in Cairo as Israel sees growing chances

Israeli security chiefs discussed efforts to reach a hostage release deal with senior officials in Cairo Tuesday, as Jerusalem assessed that the chances of Hamas seeking an agreement had increased.

Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi met senior Egyptian officials in Cairo, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel, confirming a report in the Walla news outlet.

According to that report, the visit had been planned weeks ago primarily to discuss issues relating to the border between Egypt and Gaza. An official said attempts to reach an agreement with Hamas were also on the agenda, but that the terror group “still hasn’t given an answer on if it is willing to engage in negotiations.”

While Hamas has remained mum on its intentions, a senior Israeli official said that changes have increased for a deal.

“Two weeks ago I thought Hamas didn’t want a deal,” the official said, “Now I am inclined to think that it has changed its mind.”

“There is a chance to reach a deal in the coming month,” before President-elect Donald Trump enters the White House, the official added.

Several waves of negotiations over the past year have stalled and failed to reach a sequel to an agreement reached in late November 2023, which saw 105 hostages released in a weeklong truce. Israel believes that 96 of the 251 hostages kidnapped on October 7 are still in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the Israel Defense Forces. Over the past 14 months, IDF troops have rescued eight hostages and recovered the bodies of 38.

Talks were recently renewed following the ceasefire in Lebanon, and recent regional developments, along with Trump’s threat that there will be “hell to pay” if the hostages are not released by the time he enters office on January 20, appear to have injected new vigor into talks, with officials saying they are optimistic a deal can be reached.

Unnamed sources told the Saudi Al-Arabiya news outlet Tuesday that mediators are pressuring Israel to agree to withdraw from the Philadelphi Route along the Egypt-Gaza border in order to reach a deal.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel must keep troops in the area to prevent Hamas from smuggling in weapons and rearming itself.

Separately, the Saudi Al Hadath outlet reported that the terror group had passed along a list of living hostages to Egyptian mediators. Sunday saw sources within various Palestinian terror groups in Gaza say Hamas had told them to compile information on the hostages they hold, in preparation for a potential deal with Israel.

Sounding optimistic about a deal, Netanyahu said Tuesday that the Gaza-based terror group is “more isolated than ever” after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. “It hoped for a unifying of the fronts. Instead, it got a collapse of the fronts. It expected help from Hezbollah — we took that away. It expected help from Iran — we took that as well. It expected help from the Assad regime – well, that’s not going to happen now,” he said.

“The isolation of Hamas opens another opening to making progress on a deal that will bring our hostages back,” he added, promising that he and the government are “leaving no stone unturned” in their effort to bring all the hostages home — “the living and the fallen.”

White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby echoed the prime minister’s sentiments during a briefing with reporters Tuesday: “One would hope that recent developments in Syria reinforce for [Hamas] that they are just increasingly isolated and ought to take a deal… They can’t rely on Hezbollah, they certainly can’t rely on Iran.”

Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt have privately held the opposite view, blaming the impasse on Netanyahu’s refusal to end the war in exchange for a hostage deal, which Doha and Cairo deem as a reasonable exchange.

Kirby acknowledged that the sides are not on the brink of a deal, but said the US thinks one is possible and is working tirelessly to that end. He said that US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan — who met Tuesday with the families of the remaining American-Israeli hostages — is set to travel to Israel this week where he will be working to advance a deal.

The daughter of two slain American-Israeli hostages who attended the meeting later said US President Joe Biden should have issued the kind of statement released last week by President-elect Donald Trump, who warned of “all hell to pay” if captives in the Middle East were not immediately released.

“All world leaders should have done on October 8, 2023, what Trump did in his tweet,” Gad Haggai and Judy Weinstein’s daughter Iris told The Times of Israel.

“Our situation would have been a lot different. We would have saved many lives — not only Israelis, not only hostages’ but also Palestinians — if only world leaders took a stand for the unconditional release of all these hostages,” she said.

Asked specifically whether her critique of world leaders extended to Biden, Weinstein Haggai responded, “definitely,” marking a rare critique of the outgoing president who has repeatedly been heralded by the American hostage families for his efforts to secure their loved ones’ release.

She recognized that Biden has several times throughout the war called for the unconditional release of the hostages, and she expressed appreciation for the president’s decision to visit Israel days after October 7. “But the demand for them to be released ‘or else,’ is what I’m looking for,” said Weinstein Haggai, whose parents’ bodies have been held in Gaza since they were murdered during the Hamas onslaught.

She clarified that she doesn’t expect Hamas to immediately comply with such demands, but stated they would lead the terror group to understand the international community is not accepting its narrative and that it therefore doesn’t have legitimacy to raise demands in negotiations or refuse to engage in talks at all.

“When these Hamas terrorists… see that world leaders don’t pressure them… it sends a message to them that they can execute six beautiful young people and there are no consequences, that they can release these propaganda videos and nobody’s going to do anything,” Weinstein Haggai said.

While many world leaders have demanded the immediate release of the hostages, they have done so as part of calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, which the hostages’ daughter laments is something they haven’t done when addressing other conflicts.

“It hurts my soul to see what’s happening in Gaza. My family lived a mile from Gaza for a reason. We were the first in line to advocate for peace and for a two-state solution, but the hostages can’t be used to solve the Middle East crisis,” Weinstein Haggai argued.

Regardless, she said it was “never too late” for world leaders to issue the kind of statement Trump did.

‘Real possibility for a breakthrough’

After meeting with White House Mideast czar Brett McGurk in Washington, former defense minister Yoav Gallant also said “there’s a real possibility for a breakthrough” toward a hostage deal with Hamas in the near future.

The breakthrough was made possible by a series of accomplishments Israel has made on the battlefield in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, which led to “the weakening of the Shiite axis, to the point of the fall of the murderous Assad regime,” Gallant wrote in a Facebook post.

A key sticking point in the past was Hamas’s refusal to budge from its demand for a permanent end to the war and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza in exchange for releasing the remaining hostages, while Israel has insisted on only temporary ceasefires and initially maintaining a troop presence in Gaza.

According to a recent report on Axios, the current proposal suggested by Egypt would include a phased Israeli withdrawal from Gaza during the course of a ceasefire that will last two months in exchange for the release of elderly, children, women, ill and badly wounded hostages. During that time, the sides will work to reach a more permanent end to the fighting.

The number of living hostages in these groups is today understood to be fewer than the 33 that was previously discussed in talks over past months.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.