Israel resumes Gaza ceasefire talks despite ‘unacceptable' Hamas demands

Times

a day ago

An Israeli delegation arrived in Doha to discuss a ceasefire in Gaza as Binyamin Netanyahu headed to Washington for a meeting with the US president.
'I'm determined to bring everyone back and to ensure that Gaza won't be a threat to Israel, Netanyahu said as he boarded the plane, in a nod to Israel's war goals of both freeing the hostages and crushing Hamas.
On Sunday, the Israeli prime minister's office said Hamas was seeking to make changes to the draft deal that were 'unacceptable', but Israel still sent a mission to the Qatari capital to continue negotiations.
Netanyahu said Israel's delegation could achieve an agreement, but only under the conditions accepted by Israel, adding that 'the discussion with President Trump can certainly help advance these results'.
The deal, backed by Qatar and the US, sets out a staged release of some Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. It proposes the release of ten hostages and the bodies of 18 who have died in exchange for a large number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, as well as more than 1,000 Gazan detainees who have not been accused of any crime.
The staged release — a clause intended to allow Israel the option to resume fighting during the 60 days of truce, and for Hamas to keep hold of the hostages as a guarantee Israel will not — has come under criticism from the majority of the Israeli public, who want to stop the war.
The group representing the families of most the hostages, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, termed the staged release 'Schindler's list', referring to Oskar Schindler's list of Jewish employees he saved from being sent to concentration camps. They said everyone must be brought home at once.
'At this critical time, it is forbidden to conform to the various Schindler's lists being dictated, as if it was impossible to bring them all back a long time ago,' the group said.
The staged release is a tactical step for both sides, one expert in Palestinian affairs at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Dr Ronni Shaked, said, and will not lead to the permanent end of the war civilians on both sides want.
'It's going to give for the both sides the reason to continue. Hamas is not going to give back the soldiers that were kidnapped. They will give everybody else, the bodies of the Israeli civilians, but not the soldiers,' Shaked, who is a senior correspondent on Palestinian affairs for the Israeli daily, Yedioth Ahronoth, said.
'They know the price they can ask for soldiers — similar to what they asked for in the Shalit deal in 2011. So they are waiting to stop the war and [the withdrawal] of the Israeli army from Gaza. But Bibi [Netanyahu] is not going to give it, and Bibi is not going to give it to even to Trump,' said Shaked. In 2011, one Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, was released for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, including Yahya Sinwar — the mastermind of the October 7 attack that led to the war.
Netanyahu and Trump will meet on Monday.
The previous deal, similar to the current draft agreement, saw the far-right cabinet member Itamar Ben-Gvir quit the government, only to rejoin when the fighting resumed. He and other hardline ministers have threatened to do the same again after the cabinet voted on Sunday to allow in more aid to the Gaza Strip.
The threat of collapse for any partial deal has precedent. Israel's government resumed fighting after the last ceasefire deal in March, when it chose not to move forward with a second phase of the agreement that called for discussions for permanent end to the war and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
'The cabinet and the prime minister made a grave mistake yesterday in approving the entry of aid through a route that also benefits Hamas,' Bezalel Smotrich, who heads the finance ministry, said on Sunday.
The distribution of humanitarian aid is one of the conditions for Hamas in the current agreement, reportedly demanding an end to the controversial US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund.
'While the leaders in Doha are bargaining with mediators to what line the Israeli withdrawal will be, and being stubborn [about] who will give out food, our people are hungry for food and ceasefire. The disconnection of the external leadership is costing … more land and casualties every day,' a source familiar with the discussions told The Times.
Last week, Trump promised a ceasefire deal in Gaza that would see Hamas release hostages and end the long war. However, the current deal does not outline a plan for the future control and governance of Gaza.
On Sunday, the Bedouin Gazan gang leader Yasser Abu Shabab, said that he wanted to confront Hamas over their rule of the Palestinian territory.
'We've tasted the bitterness and injustice inflicted on us by Hamas, and we've taken it upon ourselves to confront this aggression. We don't rule out confrontation with Hamas and we don't rule out civil war, no matter the cost,' Abu Shabab said to Makan, an Arabic language radio station on Israel's public broadcaster, stopping short of admitting to working with Israeli forces as alleged by officials inside Israel.
Abu Shabab has been widely condemned by much of Gazan society for his connection to drug and arms dealing, and has been accused of links to Islamic State in the Sinai desert.
Yet Israel's efforts to strengthen non-Hamas forces in Gaza are being echoed in the West Bank, where clan leaders in the southern part of the Palestinian territory reportedly offered to recognise Israel and break away from the Palestinian Authority, which partially rules the area and does not accept Israel as a Jewish state.
'We want co-operation with Israel,' Sheik Wadee' al-Jaabari was quoted by the Wall Street Journal as writing to Israel's minister of economy, Nir Barkat, adding that Hebron could become an emirate of its own and join the Abraham Accords alongside other states formally hostile to Israel.
The expansion of the Abraham Accords has been touted by the US as the prize for Israel to end its war on Gaza. But while talks in Doha continue, Israel has continued to intensify its operations in Gaza in an apparent effort to force Hamas to capitulate to a better deal.
About 80 people have been killed and more than 300 wounded since Saturday, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, eight of whom were shot near the currently closed aid distribution centres.
The fighting has killed more than 55,000 people in nearly two years. More than 400 members of the Israeli military have been killed, including a soldier killed in southern Gaza on Friday.