WASHINGTON – According to three Arab officials from mediator countries who spoke with the Times of Israel Last week, negotiations between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip reached an impasse, mainly due to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refusing to end the war and withdraw Israeli forces in exchange for the release of all hostages.
These officials acknowledged that Hamas had also refused recent proposals for a temporary ceasefire in exchange for a small number of hostages, but they argued that those offers were doomed to failure because the terrorist group had long made clear that he would not accept frameworks guaranteeing Israel the right to then resume fighting in Gaza.
Asked why Egypt and Qatar had made such proposals for a temporary ceasefire if they knew Hamas would not accept them, an Arab diplomat said the idea had come from the Biden administration, which had encouraged mediators to explore all possible avenues towards an agreement.
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The Arab mediators seemed to understand Hamas’s prejudice against any proposed agreement allowing the resumption of the war and the maintenance of the IDF in Gaza, while rejecting Netanyahu’s own prejudice against agreements not including these two conditions. .
“The United States sees things the same way. The president [Joe] Biden said it was time for the war to end and Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken said the United States would not accept Israeli soldiers remaining in Gaza,” a second Arab diplomat said.
To explain Netanyahu’s reluctance to give in on these two demands, an Israeli official close to the negotiations on the hostage issue believes that the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from Gaza “would harm the image of victory” that the Prime Minister is trying to convey. ‘impose.
From left: Senior Hamas official Zaher Jabarin, Mohammed Ismail Darwish, chairman of the group’s advisory board, known as Abu Omar Hassan, and Khaled Mashaal, senior Palestinian movement official, receive condolences at the funeral of the political leader of the Palestinian movement, Ismail Haniyeh, in the Qatari capital Doha, August 2, 2024. (Credit: Mahmud Hams/AFP)
Asked about the potentially political reasons for Netanyahu’s reluctance to end the war, the Israeli official declined to comment. At least that’s the view of the prime minister’s critics, who point to threats from his far-right coalition partners to bring down the government if he accepted a hostage deal and ended the war.
The top Arab diplomat speculated that Netanyahu’s strategy in recent months was to obstruct negotiations to secure better ceasefire terms when US President-elect Donald Trump would take office in two months.
“This strategy is wrong because Hamas will not give in to its main demands just because Trump is in power,” said the Arab diplomat from a mediating country.
Hostage families also said their loved ones were unlikely to survive two more months in captivity and called on the Biden administration and the Trump transition team to work together to reach a settlement. agreement before the inauguration on January 20.
On Saturday, the Israeli military said it was investigating Hamas’ claims that a female hostage had recently been killed following IDF bombings in northern Gaza.
The Israeli official agreed that Trump may be more willing than Biden to accept a residual military presence in Gaza after the war – something former Trump officials told the Times of Israel last month.
This does not mean, however, that Hamas will agree to release all the hostages under these conditions, given that the terrorist group sees this as its only means of pressure to persuade Israel to completely withdraw from Gaza, the Israeli official said.
People shout slogans during a demonstration against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and call for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the militant group Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, November 23, 2024. On Signs read, written in Hebrew: “The boss is satisfied, the hostages die” and “Instead of conscience, make a deal”. (Credit: AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
Agreeing to end the war and completely withdraw Israeli forces would undoubtedly be an unsatisfactory solution for Hamas, but Arab officials believe it is inevitable.
“There will always be Palestinians susceptible to recruitment by Hamas, but it is all the more likely as the war drags on. What is less certain is the survival of the hostages,” argued the first Arab diplomat.
“And meanwhile we see the Israeli military putting in place infrastructure to stay in Gaza indefinitely,” the second Arab diplomat said, pointing to the IDF’s expansion of the Netzarim corridor into a five-kilometer closed military zone wide, as well as the installation of relay towers and water pipes from Israel.
More importantly, the Arab diplomat argued, Netanyahu rejects any Palestinian Authority (PA) participation in Gaza, comparing the PA to Hamas. But the international community considers Ramallah as the one and only viable alternative to Hamas, essential to create a political horizon conducive to a possible two-state solution – an eventuality that Israel refuses.
For much of this first year of war, Netanyahu refused to do what Washington asked of him, that is, to imagine the management of Gaza in the post-war period, on the grounds that it would be of no use as that Hamas would be in power. But recently he acknowledged that an alternative was needed to manage the distribution of humanitarian aid to prevent Hamas from reconstituting itself.
After refusing to let the PA play that role, he began exploring the idea of using private contractors and having it financed by countries like the United Arab Emirates, the Israeli official said.
But Abu Dhabi has repeatedly made clear that it will not support the reconstruction and management of Gaza unless a reformed PA is involved as part of a credible path to a two-state solution – conditions that Israel does not accept.
Palestinians search through the rubble of a building after an Israeli strike in southern Gaza City, November 22, 2024 (Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
“The United States knows that Netanyahu is the main obstacle to an agreement, but it refuses to say it publicly,” argued the Arab diplomat.
A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council declined to comment on the assertion, but referred the Times of Israel to public remarks made by administration officials who blame Hamas’ refusal for the lack of agreement.
Netanyahu’s spokesperson issued a similar response that highlighted the assertions made by senior Biden officials to the same effect regarding Hamas’ responsibility.
“Hamas was and remains the only obstacle to the agreement,” the spokesperson said.
Blinken said it was Hamas’s intransigence that led Qatar to expel the terror group’s leaders late last month.
A third Arab diplomat rejected Washington’s suggestion that Doha’s decision was the product of its disappointment with Hamas, saying Israel was no less to blame for Qatar’s temporary suspension of mediation.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, surrounded by some of his ministers, during a session of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem, November 18, 2024. (Credit: AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
He explained that Netanyahu had added new conditions to the previous Israeli proposal, which had undermined the negotiations after Hamas had just accepted Jerusalem’s main demands in early July.
“Every time we got closer to an agreement, Netanyahu added new conditions or made statements that derailed the negotiations,” the Arab diplomat said.
The member of the Biden administration noted that Hamas had added around ten new demands at this key moment of the talks last July, and that many of these conditions were
“unacceptable”.
The third Arab diplomat also questioned the United States’ belief that ousting Hamas leaders from Qatar could prompt the terror group to show more flexibility during the talks.
“Now they are in Türkiye, and we are trying to negotiate with them. What has this changed? “, asked the diplomat.
The member of the Biden administration, for his part, defended the decision to ask Qatar to expel Hamas officials, while recognizing that it should have been taken much earlier.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said last week that the United States does not want Turkey or any of its allies to host Hamas leaders, but Washington has not formally requested in Ankara to extradite the senior Hamas official, Khaled Meshaal, who is also under indictment by the American justice system.
