Summer Said, Jared Malsin and Gordon Lubold
U.S. negotiators are pushing for a cease-fire deal that could stop the war in Gaza long enough to stall Israel’s military momentum and potentially set the stage for a more lasting truce, according to U.S. and Arab officials familiar with the negotiations.
Israel and Hamas are considering a three-part deal that would release hostages in Gaza beginning with a six-week cease-fire, according to a draft of the agreement hashed out this week by international intelligence chiefs in Paris. Subsequent phases also would see fighting stop and more hostages let go.
U.S. negotiators, led by Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns, argue that it would be difficult for Israel to resume the war at its current intensity after a long pause, the officials said. The U.S. also has told fellow negotiators that Israel was considering the idea of moving to a phase—once all hostages are released—during which major operations would be more limited, including airstrikes on Gaza, the officials added.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t respond to a request for comment on whether it was considering such a prospect.
“We are looking at an extended pause as the goal,” said White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. “How long, that’s all part of the discussions, but longer than what we saw in November, which was about a week.”
Kirby said “nobody is doing a touchdown dance” yet, but the administration is hopeful of getting all sides to agree to a halt in fighting that would get hostages out of Gaza and more humanitarian assistance in.
Families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza gather with supporters for a demonstration in Tel Aviv.
Getting such a deal over the line would require surmounting internal divisions and entrenched differences between the warring sides. The Arab officials said that the obstacles make an imminent deal unlikely, but suggested that if they are overcome then an agreement could be completed within a week to 10 days.
The closed-door meeting in Paris included David Barnea, director of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, who broadly signed off on the deal’s outline, people familiar with the negotiations said. Since the last cessation of hostilities, talks between the two sides had been at an impasse.
The willingness of both sides even to consider the outlines of a deal indicates a small but significant shift in negotiations. It also demonstrates the pressures on Israel and Hamas as the war in Gaza heads into its fifth month and has brought the region to the brink of full-blown conflict.
Israel, determined to eradicate Hamas, faces strengthening calls from some Israelis to conclude the war to get more than 100 hostages back, and a growing fatigue within the Biden administration with the conflict’s toll. Washington’s allies in Arab states are pressing for a permanent end to the war that has cost tens of thousands of lives.
Hamas has said it would only be willing to release the hostages in exchange for an end to the war, something that Israel has said it wouldn’t agree to. The current proposal reflects an attempt to bridge the gap by buying time to negotiate a long-term truce and in the process effectively put a hard stop on the conflict, according to officials familiar with the talks. Hamas indicated to negotiators it would be flexible about the length of the truce so long as it had guarantees for a longer-term cease-fire, they added.
The Future of Gaza: What Happens When the Israel-Hamas War Ends?Play video: The Future of Gaza: What Happens When the Israel-Hamas War Ends?
Several proposals have been made to resolve the Israel-Hamas conflict, but disagreements over Gaza’s governance are blocking progress. Here’s where the key players stand, and why they’re struggling to find common ground. Photo illustration: Ryan Trefes
According to a draft of the deal read to The Wall Street Journal by officials involved in the talks, during the first phase Israel would cease all military operations in Gaza including drone surveillance for six weeks while Hamas gathers hostages for release. Civilian hostages including the elderly, the sick and children would be freed. In Gaza, civilians would be free to move around the strip and aid could also reach all parts.
If that phase succeeds, a second would begin with Hamas releasing female Israeli soldiers, the draft says. More humanitarian aid would go into the strip, and the deal would guarantee the operation of hospitals, water services and bakeries.
In the third phase of the potential cease-fire, Hamas would release male soldiers and the bodies of dead hostages, according to the draft. The militant group, a U.S.-designated terror organization, considers all Israelis between certain ages to be soldiers because of the country’s conscription rules. Hamas has also demanded the return of the bodies of Palestinians killed during Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, negotiators said.
That final stage of the deal is expected to be the most precarious, as Hamas’s leaders in Gaza could hold on to a small group of hostages as bargaining chips and human shields, while Israeli leaders could refuse to release high-profile Palestinian prisoners.
“That would allow Netanyahu to avoid the political fallout of agreeing to those high-value releases and of ending the war,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli negotiator and government official.
At the meeting in Paris over the weekend, the C.I.A.’s Burns drew up the broad outlines of the deal with his counterparts from Egypt and Israel and the prime minister of Qatar. Israel described the talks in Paris as constructive, while Hamas said it was studying the plan. Both sides found flaws in the framework.
Sticking points remain, including the ratio of Palestinian prisoners exchanged for the hostages. Hamas has demanded the release of 150 Palestinian prisoners for each female Israeli soldier set free. Israel wants back all soldiers that are held in Gaza, negotiators said. It couldn’t be determined how many prisoners Israel would let go in return.
Hamas is also under pressure from an Israeli military assault on the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza where Israel thinks the group’s leaders are hiding underground. The onslaught has made Hamas’s political leadership in exile more willing to negotiate, analysts say, while the group’s leaders in Gaza have maintained a hard line in the talks.
Some Israeli military officials say that Israel’s latest offensive is designed to push Hamas to agree to more favorable terms. “The other side has to believe that we are going all the way,” a senior Israeli military official said.
U.S. and Israeli military officials are increasingly confident that Hamas can survive the Israeli invasion, putting in doubt one of Israel’s main war aims—the militant group’s elimination. Although Hamas has incurred thousands of casualties and remains under intense pressure from Israeli attack, U.S. and Israeli intelligence assessments have concluded that it can continue fighting for months with its underground infrastructure still largely intact.
Top leaders on both sides, however, are reluctant to make the concessions needed to complete the deal. Hamas’s chief in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, sees himself as negotiating from a position of strength after holding out during four months of bombing, negotiators say.
Netanyahu is resolute about keeping Israeli forces in Gaza and, according to people familiar with his thinking, remains convinced that Israel could rescue the remaining hostages through military action rather than negotiation.
The prime minister also faces the threat of ultranationalist members of his governing coalition unraveling the government if Israel strikes a deal with Hamas. Hard-line leaders like National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir made the same ultimatum ahead of the November cease-fire, but didn’t follow through.
Other important obstacles remain, not least Hamas’s demand for international guarantees of a cease-fire and for a full Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza.
“We won’t remove the IDF from the Gaza Strip and we won’t release thousands of terrorists. This won’t happen,” Netanyahu said Tuesday referring to the Israeli military.
Key Hamas leaders, including Ismail Haniyeh, the exiled head of the group’s political bureau, were set to fly to Cairo this week to continue discussions with Egyptian officials on the contours of a deal.
No comments:
Post a Comment