Israel and Hamas agreed in principle on a hostage deal overnight Monday and have been working in Doha since then to finalize details of the deal’s implementation, two officials said Arabs in Times of Israel.
One of the main issues to be resolved is the exact parameters of the Israeli army’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and mediators are still waiting for a map from Israel on this, Arab officials say.
Both officials believe an agreement will be announced Wednesday or Thursday in the form of a joint statement from the United States, Qatar and Egypt, which served as mediators between Israel and Hamas.
Earlier on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel had accepted the hostage deal, while Hamas had yet to do the same.
On Monday, two officials familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel that US President-elect Donald Trump’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, had a “tense” meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Saturday, during from which he put pressure on the Prime Minister to make the necessary compromises to obtain an agreement.
One of the Arab officials speaking to the Times of Israel Tuesday claims that Witkoff managed to move Netanyahu more in that single meeting than the Biden administration had done in countless conversations over the past year.
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