| Israel and Hamas are at their closest point in months to reaching a truce and hostage release agreement, Qatar’s foreign ministry said today. Officials from both sides have acknowledged progress toward a deal as talks continue in Doha with meditation by Qatar along with the United States and Egypt. Other such potential deals have collapsed multiple times over the course of more than fifteen months of fighting. Envoys for both U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump have pressed for the current agreement in recent days.
The draft deal resembles a three-phase agreement detailed by Biden in May, the Associated Press reported based on a copy of the draft verified by unnamed Egyptian and Hamas officials. It would reportedly begin with a six-week period that includes the gradual release of thirty-three Hamas-held hostages and potentially hundreds of Palestinian women and children detained by Israel. In this first phase, Israel would begin to withdraw from Gaza’s population centers, and displaced Palestinians could return to their homes. Some six hundred trucks of humanitarian aid would enter Gaza each day. The details of the subsequent phases still need to be negotiated during the first one. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting today with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—who voiced opposition to the cease-fire—in a test of Netanyahu’s ability to hold his governing coalition together if the deal moves forward. An unnamed Israeli official told CNN that Israel had “made all the compromises that are needed” for a deal, while two unnamed officials involved in the talks told the Associated Press that Hamas had accepted the draft. (WaPo, AP, CNN) “The degree of cooperation between the Biden and Trump administration is unprecedented. Although it is the Biden administration that’s doing the bulk of the negotiating, never have an uninaugurated president and his yet-to-be official envoy played visible roles in a negotiation,” the Carnegie Endowment’s Aaron David Miller posts. ”Hamas needs a deal; Netanyahu [is] more willing to accept one as long as it doesn’t end war; and uncertainties and pressures of a new [U.S.] administration is reinforcing odds of a limited deal.” “2025 is going to be the year when the battle for Gaza actually begins, CFR expert Steven A. Cook writes for Foreign Policy. “Assuming an agreement is reached, the disposition of the Gaza Strip will become a major issue in the Middle East. Although various organizations, analysts, and governments have come up with a variety of plans for postwar Gaza, most of them are unrealistic.” ` |
