Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called Hamas’ response to the latest Gaza peace proposal “negative.” Hamas insists it is dealing with the matter “proactively.”
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said in a speech in Qatar that Hamas had demanded a number of changes, some of which were “workable” and others that were not. A Hamas official told an Arabic-language television station that the group had not offered any new ideas and that Mr. Blinken saw things from Israel’s perspective and “spoke in Hebrew.”
The Biden administration has pledged to continue working with Qatari and Egyptian mediators to bridge differences. But after days of intensive diplomacy in the region, months-long efforts to end the Gaza war appear to remain stalled as each side stubbornly insists on extreme demands that the other cannot accept.
Asked at the Group of Seven summit in Italy on Friday if he still believed a deal could be reached, President Biden said: “I haven’t lost hope, but it’s going to be hard.”
The key disagreement surrounding the three-phase agreement is that Officials And experts agree that Hamas’s goal is actually to secure a permanent ceasefire from the outset and demand a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and then hand over most of the hostages.
Israel has expressed willingness to negotiate a permanent truce in the war, now in its ninth month, but only if it destroys Hamas’ military and governing capacity, which conflicts with Hamas’s goal of surviving the war and maintaining control over its coastal enclave.
“Hostages are Hamas’ only trump card against Israel, so its basic demands are extremist,” said Shaul Shea, former deputy chairman of Israel’s National Security Council and current senior fellow at the Institute for International Counter-Terrorism Studies at Reichman University in Israel.
“What Hamas wants is for Israel to withdraw and end the war, and for it to continue to rule Gaza, despite all the consequences that would entail, but the fate of the hostages is not entirely clear,” he said.
this Three-phase plan The plan calls for an immediate temporary ceasefire, followed by efforts to permanently end the war and rebuild Gaza. The plan also calls for the release of all civilians and soldiers imprisoned in Gaza in exchange for more Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
The recent chain reaction of proposals and counterproposals began in late April, when Israel put forward a draft that Mr. Blinken called “extremely generous.”
Israel made at least two concessions, allowing displaced Palestinians in northern Gaza to return to their homes and reducing the number of hostages to be released in the first phase of the agreement from 40 to 33.
Of the more than 250 people captured in the devastating Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that sparked the war, 116 remain in Gaza, according to Israeli officials. At least a third of them are dead.
According to Israeli officials, the October 7 attack killed about 1,200 people, while Gaza health authorities say more than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war so far. Their statistics do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Hamas announced on May 6 that it had accepted the proposal. But it turned out that the group had accepted a revised version. Israel said at the time Major gaps remain Between the two parties.
Weeks later, Israel responded with its latest draft, which Biden outlined in a May 31 speech and was subsequently approved by the UN Security Council. U.S. and Israeli officials said the draft was very similar to the one Hamas accepted on May 6.
Israeli officials have confirmed that the proposal has been unanimously approved by Netanyahu’s small wartime cabinet, but far-right members of his ruling coalition have vowed to oppose it if he goes ahead with the proposal. Overthrow his government.
Netanyahu himself has avoided publicly accepting the proposal, but the Biden administration has said Israel fully agrees. An Israeli government official, whose name and position cannot be made public under the agreement, said in a statement this week that the proposal enables Israel to achieve its war goals.
“Israel accepted the proposal, but Hamas did not,” Blinken said in Qatar this week.
Israel is getting closer to ending the war as its ground operation in the Gaza city of Rafah gets underway. Israel has used the southernmost city of Gaza as the last bastion of Hamas militants and now controls the corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, which has long been a major route for weapons smuggling into Gaza.
But Hamas has shown resilience, reappearing in areas of central Gaza that Israel believes have been cleared of militants. Palestinian national security expert Zakaria Kak said the group had little incentive to compromise and give up any future role after the war, especially in recent polls. show It is the most popular faction among Palestinians.
“Hamas does not want to lose politically while gaining a foothold militarily,” he said. Their resilience, he said, “is their victory.”
Hamas has issued multiple statements saying Netanyahu has condemned the proposal and insisted on continuing the war, despite reports that Israel has accepted the plan.
In addition to the US guarantee of a permanent ceasefire, Hamas now demands that Russia, China and Turkey become guarantors and signatories of the ceasefire agreement, a demand that Israel cannot accept.
The dispute comes amid a week of dramatic events and conflicting emotions between Israelis and Gazans. Daring rescue Four hostages were taken from the Gaza Strip. Palestinians mourned the dozens of Gazans killed in the attack — well over 200, according to Gaza health officials. Immediately after the incident, the Israeli military said the death toll was less than 100. Neither side provided detailed data on how many of the dead were fighters or civilians.
Analysts said the high death toll was likely to harden Hamas’s negotiating stance.
A few days later, militants blew up a building in Rafah where Israeli soldiers were operating, killing four Israeli soldiers and injuring several others. Hamas’ military wing took responsibility. “Our fighters blew up a house with explosives in which Zionist militants were stationed,” Hamas said in a statement.
Shea, a former deputy national security adviser, said Israeli, military or external pressure on Hamas was not enough. He said the United States and Qatar could do more, such as working to freeze Hamas funds and expel Hamas officials based in Doha, the Qatari capital.
But Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, speaking to reporters alongside Blinken in Doha on Wednesday, said there was a reason Qatar allowed Hamas to keep an office in Doha – as a channel of communication, which he said was effective and was being used.
He said that as a mediator, Qatar tried “not to judge either side” and did its best to bridge the differences.
Mr Al-Thani said: “Our biggest concern is that it will take too long to close these gaps and we need to end this as soon as possible.”
