How close is a new pact between Israel and Hamas?
It is a question that is repeated every day with each report on progress and setbacks, and for which there is still no definitive answer.
If the messages from the mediators are weighed, for the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, there is “hope” or “significant progress”, according to the Qatari Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohamed bin Abderraman al Thani, although they admit that there is work to be done . However, the public expressions of the parties in conflict represent a bucket of cold water.
After receiving a draft that emerged from two days of talks in Paris between the intelligence chiefs of the United States, Egypt and Israel and the aforementioned Al Thani, the leader of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniye, says he is “studying” the proposal – to who is expected to travel to Cairo – and has shown himself “open to discussing any serious and practical idea.” Of course, he reiterates the demand for “a complete withdrawal of troops” and the “freedom” of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
These two demands are not acceptable to the Israeli leadership, as Prime Minister Beniamin Netanyahu has again made clear. In a speech to students at a military academy in the Eli settlement in the occupied West Bank (an ultra-Orthodox and Jewish supremacist stronghold), he denied that they will “withdraw” Israeli forces from Gaza or free “thousands of terrorists.” ”.
Statements made to the gallery are not always related to what is negotiated behind the scenes. But in this case they reflect what remains the main gap in the talks: Hamas wants guarantees of a path to a definitive ceasefire that Israel is not willing to give.
However, there is a will to negotiate and there is an outline of an agreement on the table, which represents progress compared to recent weeks. This proposal establishes three phases to achieve the handover of all the hostages held captive in Gaza, a significant number of Palestinian prisoners and a potential ceasefire.
Of these stages, Axios reveals, only the first has been defined, which would include a six-week pause for the release of between 35 and 40 hostages, specifically women, children, men over 60 years of age and those with serious medical conditions. For each one, Israel would agree to release three Palestinian prisoners.
A second phase would allow the release of civilian men under 60 and Israeli soldiers held by Palestinian militias, while the third would include the return of the bodies of dead hostages. In those instances, the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released per hostage would increase, while the cessation of hostilities could be extended.
But there are many obstacles that this roadmap, still preliminary, could face. One is the volatility of what is happening on the ground, with an Israeli siege that does not reduce its violence in Gaza – on the contrary, Israel has reactivated its attacks in the north and center due to reports of Hamas regrouping – and that worsens the humanitarian crisis, the exodus and famine of the Palestinians.
Added to this are the increasingly widening tensions in the region and the calculations of the United States, which seeks to respond to the attack by pro-Iranian militias that killed three of its soldiers without putting the talks at risk.
And another obstacle is the internal pressure Netanyahu faces. On the one hand, relatives of hostages are raising protests for a release agreement and Benny Gantz’s National Unity party is weighing the possibility of dissolving the war cabinet if the prime minister rejects a viable exchange proposal with Hamas.
On the other hand, the Minister of Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, threatens to bring down the Government if Netanyahu accepts a “reckless” agreement. At the same time, he and more than a dozen ministers and legislators from the ultranationalist and supremacist wing of the coalition multiply their support for the reoccupation of Gaza, as occurred at a conference in Jerusalem on Sunday.
This, contrary to what Washington demands and while the prime minister continues to be ambiguous about the plans for the strip once the Israeli invasion ends.
