Hamas Response to Cease-Fire Proposal Shows Wide Gaps Persist: Latest Updates

Neither Hamas nor Israel formally launched particulars concerning the proposal, which it submitted to Egyptian and Qatari mediators on Tuesday night time. A spokesman for Hamas declined to remark, and the Israeli prime minister’s workplace didn’t reply to requests for remark.

However the Lebanese each day Al-Akhbar, thought of near Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, printed a leaked model of Hamas’s counterproposal on Wednesday, providing the closest look but at its phrases for ending the preventing. A senior Hamas official and an Israeli official conversant in the talks, who spoke on situation of anonymity, confirmed that the textual content in Al-Akhbar matched Hamas’s counteroffer.

Hamas’s willingness to barter below a broad framework hammered out by Qatar, Egypt, Israel and the USA at talks in Paris late final month has been extensively seen as a optimistic step.

However a key level of rivalry between Israel and Hamas has been the truce’s length: Hamas calls for a everlasting cease-fire, whereas Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed Israel will struggle till “full victory.”

In the course of the second part, talks aimed toward attaining “full calm” and the top of navy operations by each side have to be accomplished, in response to the counterproposal.

The Paris framework laid out plans that may start with a six-week cease-fire, however the Hamas’s counteroffer fills it out with many extra particulars not contained within the authentic Paris framework, together with the variety of days every part of the deal would final

Underneath Hamas’s proposal, within the first stage, Israeli forces would retreat from Gaza’s residential areas. Within the subsequent part, the Israeli navy would go away Gaza.

In the course of the first two phases, Hamas would launch Israelis and international nationals held hostage within the Gaza Strip, whereas Israel would launch among the greater than 8,000 Palestinians imprisoned in its jails. In the course of the third part, each Israel and Hamas would swap our bodies held of their custody.

Roughly 100 residing hostages stay in Gaza, the overwhelming majority of them kidnapped in Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault, as do the our bodies of greater than 30 others, in response to the Israeli prime minister’s workplace.

As a part of the primary part, Hamas is demanding the discharge of all of the Palestinian girls, kids, older adults and sick Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. In change, Hamas would launch all the hostages in those self same classes nonetheless held in Gaza, aside from feminine troopers.

One other 1,500 Palestinian prisoners would even be launched throughout the first part, together with 500 serving lengthy sentences for his or her involvement in lethal assaults in opposition to Israelis. Hamas would select the names of the five hundred prisoners serving lengthy sentences, the doc says.

Final week, Mr. Netanyahu vowed that Israel wouldn’t launch hundreds of Palestinian prisoners or withdraw Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip below the phrases of a cease-fire settlement. “We won’t compromise on something lower than whole victory,” Mr. Netanyahu mentioned in a speech within the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution.

Michael Milshtein, a former senior Israeli navy intelligence officer, mentioned the proposed deal would successfully finish the battle with Hamas whereas leaving the Palestinian armed group in energy in Gaza. However given the impasse by which Israel has discovered itself in Gaza, that is perhaps the absolute best state of affairs for the nation, he mentioned.

“Underneath its present coverage, Israel just isn’t succeeding at both bringing dwelling the hostages nor toppling Hamas. Since we’ve reached this junction, it could be higher to take the deal slightly than find yourself with nothing,” mentioned Mr. Milshtein.

Palestinians would even be allowed to return to their houses throughout the Gaza Strip throughout the first stage of the cease-fire, below the Hamas counterproposal, which might additionally mandate a major enhance in humanitarian help getting into the coastal enclave. It calls for at least 500 vehicles of help, gasoline, and different items to enter Gaza each day.

Mr. Netanyahu has mentioned Israel gained’t enable displaced Palestinians to return to their houses in northern Gaza so long as preventing there continues.

Analysts near Hamas contended that the group wouldn’t be capable to supply concessions on the thorniest points within the negotiations.

“Preserving one occupation soldier in Gaza can be a defeat and a disaster,” mentioned Salah al-Din al-Awawdeh, a Palestinian analyst near Hamas who was launched from an Israel jail in 2011. “Nobody will settle for that.”

Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, mentioned in a televised interview on Tuesday night time that the group’s management would help a phased cease-fire and gradual Israeli withdrawal so long as the method finally led to a ultimate truce.

“Israel desires to get all of the hostages after which have absolutely the freedom to return to battle and killing and assassinations,” Mr. Hamad informed al-Mayadeen, the Lebanese broadcaster. “However on the finish, we want a textual content that clearly ensures a complete cease-fire and the withdrawal of occupation forces.”