Israeli negotiators have held crunch talks with mediators in Doha over a ceasefire with Hamas and the release of hostages from Gaza, as diplomats said the two sides were edging closer to a deal before US president-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
Israeli and US officials have expressed guarded optimism about the chances of a deal, but mediators have previously been hopeful that the warring parties were edging towards an agreement only for the process to founder over their refusal to compromise on important issues.
“We believe – and the Israelis have said this – that we’re getting closer,” John Kirby, spokesman for the US National Security Council, told Fox News on Tuesday. “[But] we’ve been in this position before where we weren’t able to get it over the finish line.”
The Israeli team arrived in Qatar on Monday evening for talks that will help gauge whether the parties are finally willing to break the months-long deadlock that has stymied efforts to end the 14-month war in Gaza.
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“Both sides have taken the talks more seriously and have compromised on certain details that used to be a sticking points,” said one diplomat.
Israel and Hamas are expected to give their responses to the mediators’ latest proposal, which is based on a version of a three-phase plan US president Joe Biden endorsed at the end of May.
Hamas said on Tuesday that the talks were “serious and positive” and that reaching a deal was possible if Israel stopped adding “new conditions”.
A person familiar with the situation said the talks were focused on narrowing gaps between the sides as a prelude to higher-level negotiations. The biggest gap remains over the number of hostages to be released as part of the deal, the person said.
Momentum for a deal has accelerated since Mr Trump won the US election. Steven Witkoff, his Middle East envoy, has held talks with Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Qatar’s prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, in recent weeks to push for an agreement.
Mr Netanyahu also met Adam Boehler, Mr Trump’s envoy for hostage affairs, on Monday during a private visit to Israel by Mr Boehler, said Mr Netanyahu’s office.
The latest negotiations revolve around an initial six- to eight-week ceasefire, during which some of the roughly 100 hostages still being held by Hamas would be freed in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
According to two people familiar with the situation, Hamas has softened its stance on details of where Israeli troops deploy in Gaza during the different phases of the proposed arrangement.
The Palestinian militant group has previously said it would only accept a deal that guaranteed a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the besieged strip by the end of the second phase.
But Mr Netanyahu has insisted that any truce would only be temporary and that he would not pull troops out of Gaza.
A person familiar with the situation said “creative ideas” were being examined as an alternative to the continued presence of Israeli troops in the Philadelphi corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border after a ceasefire takes effect.
Israel’s refusal to withdraw from the corridor, the only entry point to the strip not bordering Israel, has been a big stumbling block in previous rounds of talks.
Mr Trump has demanded the hostages be released by his inauguration on January 20th, posting on his network Truth Social this month that “there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East” if they are not.
Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz last week told his US counterpart Lloyd Austin that there was “a chance” for a deal that would allow for the release of all hostages, according to a summary from his office.
However, other officials cautioned that obstacles would still have to be overcome before any deal was reached. “Even with the shift in position from Hamas, still the gaps are very wide,” said an Arab diplomat. “We see the momentum ... but we are not very optimistic.”
The war in Gaza began last year after Hamas launched a shock attack in southern Israel on October 7th, during which militants killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, and took a further 250 hostage.
In response, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 45,000 people, according to Palestinian officials, as well as laying waste to the enclave and displacing most of its 2.3 million citizens. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024