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After rejecting the latest Gaza ceasefire proposals by Egyptian mediators, Israel has presented its own plan, sources briefed on the matter told The National.
Hamas found the latest Israeli proposals so unacceptable that it has refused to respond, even when the terms were conveyed through mediators. Previously, the Egyptians were proposing a 50-day humanitarian truce, with Hamas releasing at least five hostages, including a dual US-Israel national, before the end of the first seven days. Hamas agreed to that proposal.
One new demand made by Israel is for Hamas to show its goodwill by releasing a dual US-Israel soldier it is holding captive before a deal is reached, said the sources.
Israel is also proposing that Hamas release 10 Israeli soldiers on the first day of a 40-day truce, they added. In return, Israel will free from its prisons 120 Palestinians serving life sentences along with 1,111 others, according to the proposals. Israel is also demanding that Hamas hand over the remains of 16 deceased hostages in exchange for the remains of 160 Palestinians.
While Israel set the duration of the truce at 40 days, it said negotiations based on "new principles" should begin on the second day, the sources stated. This, they explained, reflected Israel's refusal to negotiate the second stage of an agreement brokered in January by US, Egyptian, Qatari and Egyptian mediators, and which included a seven-week ceasefire.
On Saturday, the sources said talks were under way between mediators and Israeli and Hamas negotiators on a set of modifications introduced by Cairo to its earlier blueprint. They said the discussions were taking place in Qatar and Egypt.
A Hamas delegation was expected in Cairo later on Saturday, they added.
"They are not new proposals. They are changes in the earlier proposals that touch on the number of hostages to be freed by Hamas and that of the Palestinians to be released in return," said one source.
The Gaza truce expired on March 1, but Gaza remained relatively quiet until March 18, when Israel resumed air strikes and later ground operations. The second-stage negotiations, according to the agreement, should have started in early February and produced a deal on releasing the remaining hostages – about 58, of whom only 24 are alive – as well as an end to the war and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Moreover, Israel continues to demand that Hamas disarms and its leaders leave Gaza and go into exile, conditions already rejected by Hamas.
"Israel has told the Egyptian and Qatari mediators that it has new plans on the ground in Gaza which it will not give up, something that has led to the freezing of negotiations," said one of the sources. "It has also angered Egypt by designating a new corridor in Gaza that separates Rafah and Khan Younis" in the southern part of Gaza.
The sources said Egyptian mediators also had reason to believe that Israel is currently fuelling divisions among Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians, including encouragement of anti-Hamas protest there.
Hundreds of people were seen chanting slogans across the territory in recent weeks, calling for the end of the war and for Hamas's rule to end. Placards hoisted by demonstrators read “Stop the war”, “We refuse to die”, and “The blood of our children is not cheap”.
Social media campaigners and tribal leaders had urged residents to join the protests, which have divided Gaza’s population. While some support the demonstrations as a call to end the war, others oppose them, arguing that they could fuel internal discord.
Hamas officials characterised the widespread protests in Gaza, calling for an end to the war and the group's removal from power as an Israeli attempt to put pressure on it to disarm. However, demonstrators told The National they were protesting against the continuation of the war, which has devastated their lives.
Hamas, which led a deadly attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, that sparked the war, has controlled the enclave since 2006, and held no elections since then, partially due to a falling out with Fatah, the party that leads the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority. Israel's war on Gaza has killed more than 50,000 people and left most of the enclave's buildings destroyed.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel will create another corridor across Gaza's south as it laid out plans to seize more of the enclave's territory.
The Israeli leader said the military operation in Gaza had “shifted gears” and is now “seizing territory”, including a new route he called the Morag corridor, thought to be named after a Jewish settlement that once stood between Rafah and Khan Younis in the south. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
The sources said US special envoy Steve Witkoff was expected in the region next week, visiting Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. They did not give a precise date for his arrival.
The latest Egyptian modifications, according to the sources, envisage that the first seven to 10 days of the 50-day truce see the initial release of three living hostages as part of a timeline in which a total of 10 hostages could be freed. Negotiations on an Israeli withdrawal and an end to the war should begin during the first week of the truce, they added.
Separately, negotiations are taking place between Egypt and Israel on the withdrawal of the latter's military from the narrow strip that runs the length of the Egyptian-Gaza border on the Palestinian side. Israel captured the area, called the Philadelphi Corridor, in May last year.
Israel's action was strongly condemned by Egypt, which saw it as a breach of their 1979 peace treaty and subsequent accords. However, Israel insists it needs to have its forces there to deny Hamas the opportunity to rebuild its military capabilities with arms smuggled through underground tunnels from Egypt. Cairo insists that it has destroyed the tunnels nearly a decade ago.
