Gaza ceasefire talks stall over number of hostages to be freed, truce duration and future of Palestine

Israel is still insisting on disarming Hamas and its leaders going into exile, sources say

Palestinians help an injured elderly man following an Israeli strike on a metalsmith workshop at the Zaytoun neighbouhood in Gaza City on April 13. AFP

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Gaza ceasefire proposals presented by mediators Egypt and Qatar are not making progress, with Israel and Hamas at odds over key issues.

Points of contention include the number of hostages to be released, the duration of the proposed truce and the way ahead for the Palestinian territory after the war, sources said.

They told The National on Tuesday that Hamas negotiators who held talks with the Qataris and Egyptians in Cairo at the weekend have agreed to release, in two batches, nine hostages along with the remains of five dead, including those of four dual Israel-US citizens.

Hamas has also demanded the resumption of humanitarian aid to Gaza after the first batch of hostages is released; a start to negotiations about a permanent end to the 18-month-old war and a complete Israeli withdrawal from the coastal enclave.

The militant group is also demanding that the US, Israel's closest ally and benefactor, provides Hamas with a written guarantee that the negotiations would continue until an agreement is reached.

The sources said the release of the second instalment of living hostages and human remains will depend on whether Israel is honouring its end of the deal.

A Palestinian family and neighbours watch as volunteers and emergency workers search for survivors after an Israeli strike in Jabalia Al Balad in Gaza City on Sunday. AP

Israel and the US insist that half of the living hostages – or at least 11 – along with the remains of 16 deceased be released “all at once”, according to the sources. They are also proposing a 45-day truce, not the 70 days suggested by the mediators.

Israel is also insisting that Hamas provides it with full details of the living hostages, including names and health condition, halfway through its proposed 45-day truce. It also wants Hamas to stop its practice of publicly parading hostages upon their release before hundreds of Palestinian onlookers and scores of masked and armed fighters from the group.

“Israel has given the nod in principle to a gradual withdrawal, provided it keeps the buffer zones it has carved out in Gaza which amount to about 30 per cent of the territory,” said one source. “But it does not want to talk about or engage in any talks on the second stage of the January agreement.”

That deal went into effect on January 19 and resulted in a 42-day truce and the release of 33 hostages held by Hamas in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians who had been detained in Israel, as well as increasing humanitarian aid.

The two sides were supposed to negotiate the second stage of the deal in early February. Those talks should have covered a permanent end to the war and an Israeli withdrawal. But the talks never started. The ceasefire expired on March 1 and Gaza remained relatively quiet until March 18 when Israel resumed air strikes and ground operations that have since killed hundreds of Palestinians.

Israel is also now demanding that Hamas gives up its arms and that the group's leaders in Gaza leave for exile. Hamas has rejected these demands, but the sources said the group was prepared to consider the departure of some of its senior officials provided they are not targeted by Israel in exile.

While it refuses to give up its arms and insists that armed resistance is within its rights against what it regards as a foreign occupation, Hamas believes that integrating its fighters into the security forces of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority should be an acceptable compromise, the sources added.

Palestinians at dusk during a power cut in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. EPA

Already, Hamas has agreed to give up its 18-year rule of Gaza, be excluded from the reconstruction efforts and has given its consent to a committee of 15 independent Palestinian technocrats to run postwar Gaza.

Israel has consistently insisted since the war began that only the complete dismantlement of Hamas's governing and military capabilities will end the fighting. It also has embraced and started to act on a proposal by US President Donald Trump to relocate Gaza's 2.3 million residents to Egypt and Jordan before the territory on the shores of the east Mediterranean is turned into a kitsch resort. The idea has been widely rejected and described by human rights groups as ethnic cleansing.

The war in Gaza broke out after Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people. Hamas and allied fighters also took about 251 hostages, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza. The Israeli military says 34 are believed to have died in captivity.

Gaza's Health Ministry said on Sunday that at least 1,613 Palestinians had been killed since March 18, when the ceasefire collapsed, taking the overall death toll since the war began to around 51,000. The war has also laid waste to most of Gaza's built-up areas and displaced most of the enclave's residents.