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Negotiations in Cairo and Doha for a Gaza ceasefire are "not leading" to a deal yet, with Hamas categorically rejecting Israel's demand that it surrenders its weapons, sources told The National on Tuesday.
The negotiations resumed simultaneously on Monday in the Egyptian and Qatari capitals, with mediators from Egypt, the US and Qatar presenting a slightly amended version of a previous proposal for a 70-day truce and the release of 10 hostages.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to bring back all hostages, “living and dead”, and the US denied that Hamas had agreed to the ceasefire proposal on the table.
“Talks aren’t leading to an agreement on a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal yet,” one of the sources said.
Hamas remains adamant that it is willing to lay down, but not surrender, its arms – and only if a long-term ceasefire is in force, the sources said. It also wants a US guarantee that indirect negotiations with Israel during a proposed 70-day truce would lead to an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a long-term ceasefire, they said.
Hamas militants took 251 hostages during the group's October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel which left about 1,200 dead and caused the war. Fifty-seven of the hostages remain in Gaza, including 34 that Israel says are dead.
On Monday, sources said the Trump administration is using Bishara Bahbah, a Palestinian-American who led the group Arab Americans for Trump during the elections last year, as an intermediary with Hamas.
He is believed to be in Doha, they said.
Involving Mr Bahbah, the sources explained, amounts to a new approach by the Americans that effectively ends the intermediary role played by Qatar and Egypt in indirect negotiations between the Americans and Hamas. Hamas leaders and US mediators are known to have met face-to-face in Doha at least once in recent weeks.
Brutal strikes
Mr Netanyahu appeared to suggest that a deal might be possible in a video message released on Monday. “I really hope we can announce something regarding the hostages, if not today, then tomorrow,” he said.
However, his office later released a statement from a “senior official” saying that Mr Netanyahu had meant only that “we will not give up on our hostages”.
The talks in Cairo and Doha have resumed amid a wave of brutal Israeli strikes that have killed entire families in homes, schools and tents despite a global outcry that has so far failed to pressure Israel into halting the war.
The US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators have been unsuccessfully trying to broker a ceasefire since the last one ended on March 18, when Israel resumed military operations in Gaza more than two weeks after it halted the entry of humanitarian aid to the territory.
Thousands of Palestinians have been killed in the enclave since March 18, taking the death toll since the war began to nearly 54,000, according to figures released by the Gaza Health Ministry. Most of Gaza's built-up areas have been reduced to rubble and the majority of its 2.3 million residents displaced.
The sources said the amended proposal now on the table in both Cairo and Doha provides for the staggered release of 10 hostages; five during the first week of the ceasefire and another five towards its end. Also proposed is the release during the truce of half of the remains of hostages who have died in captivity in Gaza.
During the proposed truce, substantial amounts of humanitarian aid would be allowed into Gaza, where hundreds of thousands are facing acute hunger despite the recent entry of modest amounts of aid. It also includes negotiations on a “long-term” ceasefire that will commence during the 70-day truce, according to the sources.
Growing condemnation
The sources said the talks also covered the departure from Gaza of senior Hamas officials as well as those of the group's ally, Islamic Jihad. They said that while Hamas officials will go into exile in either Turkey or Algeria, those from Islamic Jihad were likely to go to Iran, which has been the chief supporter of the two militant groups.
The sources said the latest version of the proposal envisages the staggered release of the 10 hostages rather than freeing all of them in one batch. This change seems to be a nod to Hamas, which wants to hold on to the hostages for as long as it can, given that they are its strongest bargaining chip after the erosion of its military capabilities by Israel.
Hamas has agreed to the staggered release of 10 hostages, the sources said.
Another slight change is that the latest plan talks about a long-term, rather than permanent, ceasefire. This appears to accommodate Israel's often-repeated assertion that the war will end only when Hamas has been stripped of all its governing and military capabilities and all the hostages and remains are released.
Hamas has also signalled its readiness to stay away from governing postwar Gaza, as well as reconstruction. It has given its agreement in principle to Israel's demand that senior officials from the group and their families leave Gaza, on condition they are not attacked by Israel in exile.
The latest round of Gaza talks comes as Israel's war draws growing condemnation from the international community over the acute shortage of food, water, fuel and medicine in the territory, as a result of as Israel's blockade.
Another part of the backdrop is the leaking of documents showing Israel's plans to control 75 per cent of Gaza's territory within two months, suggesting that the enclave's residents could be relocated to three small zones. The plans were reported by Israel's media, including The Times of Israel and The Jerusalem Post.
