The execution by Hamas of six Israeli hostages, at least some of whom were on a list of militant captives to be released in the first phase of a proposed cease-fire deal, has complicated already fraught negotiations over the proposed truce being mediated by the United States and partner countries, a senior Biden administration official said Wednesday.
“There’s a list of hostages, and we all have it, and Hamas has had it, and all the parties have had it. And there’s now fewer names on the list,” said the official, who described as “horrific” the killings of the hostages — whom Israel has said were shot at close range. “Hamas is threatening to execute more hostages. So this cannot be lost in what we’re dealing with here.” The bodies of the hostages were found by the Israel Defense Forces last weekend in an abandoned tunnel in Gaza.
Under the initial terms of the proposed three-phase deal, a specific number of hostages — including women, those over age 50 and the injured — are to be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel. Who is to be released and when, and the presence of Israeli troops along the eight-mile-long border between Israel and Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Corridor, are the most significant issues standing in the way of agreement, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House.
The deal has been complicated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s public insistence that the Israeli military will never abandon the corridor, through which he says that Hamas smuggles most of its Iranian-supplied weaponry into Gaza.
Netanyahu repeated that position in a news conference for foreign reporters Wednesday. “We made the decision. We’re not going to leave,” he said.
Frustrated mediators from the governments of Qatar, Egypt and the United States are now putting together what they have described as a “final offer,” balancing at least what appear in public to be irreconcilable positions, which they hope to have ready within the next week.
Elements of the first phase of the proposed agreement now on the table include a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance flowing into Gaza, the hostage-prisoner exchange, and a temporary cease-fire, during which Israeli forces would withdraw from “densely populated” areas of the enclave.
That phase is to last for six weeks or longer, barring violations by either side, as conditions are negotiated for the second phase: a permanent cease-fire, withdrawal of all IDF personnel from Gaza and the exchange of more Palestinian prisoners for the rest of the estimated 100 or so hostages held by Hamas, about a third of which are already believed to have died. A third phase would continue reconstruction work in the devastated enclave and install a civilian Palestinian governing structure.
The 18-paragraph “framework” document does not define what constitutes a “densely populated” area. And “nothing” in it “mentions the Philadelphi Corridor,” the official said.
In new demands presented to the mediators in late July, Israel said that parts of the corridor do not qualify as densely populated — an assessment the United States does not dispute — and that some of its troops must remain there during the first phase. Both Egypt and Hamas rejected that demand. The corridor itself consists of a fortified fence bordered by a road on either side, extending from the Mediterranean Sea eastward past the southernmost Gaza city of Rafah and the Rafah crossing into Egypt, to the Israeli border.
In recent weeks, the official said, “a dispute emerged over whether the Philadelphi Corridor — effectively a road — is a densely populated area. … There are areas in which the Rafah city kind of juts up against it. … This has been an extensive part of the negotiation of what is densely populated, what’s not.”
In recent weeks, Israel insisted that its security required some troops to remain on the Gaza side of the corridor in the less populated areas.
“I think what the Israelis put on the table a couple weeks ago is a significant reduction in the forces there now, and we have a map that kind of lays that out. And I think it’s consistent with the agreement,” the official said.
“If Israel has to make some additional adjustments on whatever issue to try to get a deal, and it’s within reason and doesn’t jeopardize Israel’s security, I think they should get a deal,” said the official, noting that there are also concessions Hamas needs to make.
“Until you have an agreement, the hostages are not coming home, and the war doesn’t stop.”
Netanyahu’s recent public statements that the IDF would never leave the Philadelphi Corridor — even in phase two of the agreement, when all troops would be required to leave Gaza — have conflicted with Israel’s private negotiating position, according to officials from several governments participating in the negotiations.
Some have charged that Netanyahu never intends to get to the second phase and plans to abandon the deal and return to war against remaining Hamas militants as soon as all Israeli hostages are released. Others insist he is simply pandering in public to extremist members of his governing coalition who want to continue the war and establish a permanent presence in Gaza, or he is biding his time in hopes that a more sympathetic Trump administration would take office after the upcoming U.S. election.
