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Amended US proposals to pause the war in Gaza and secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas will be finalised by next week, although mediators are sceptical whether the suggestions can break a months-long deadlock, sources said on Thursday.
Hamas wants Israel to fully withdraw from Gaza and agree to a permanent ceasefire, before it releases the remaining 100 Israeli hostages in its custody, the sources told The National. The Palestinian group's position, which marks no change from previous discussions, was relayed to chief mediators from Qatar and Egypt as well as mid-ranking US officials during talks in Doha on Wednesday.
The mediators have proposed changes, according to the sources, including accommodating some of Israel's “reservations” on the release of high-profile Palestinian detainees sentenced to lengthy terms in Israeli prisons, whom the militant group wants freed in exchange for the hostages. They have also asked Hamas if it would agree to the release of more hostages during the first phase of the US plan initially announced by US President Joe Biden in May.
“Hamas is not budging on its core demands, but said it will consider the latest suggestions provided that Israel agrees to fully withdraw from Gaza and to a permanent ceasefire,” said one of the sources. “No one is optimistic about the outcome of the negotiations."
Hamas said its chief negotiator Khalil Al Hayah, a close aide of the group's leader Yahya Sinwar, met Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Egypt's intelligence chief Abbas Kamel in Doha on Wednesday. The sources said Israel's insistence on maintaining control of a corridor that runs the length of Egypt's border with Gaza, as well as a road it has built that cuts the enclave in half, has become the main stumbling block in the negotiations, which have continued on-and-off for close to 10 months.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said he is unwilling to pull troops from the border strip of Salah Al Din, also known as the Philadelphi corridor, claiming that underground tunnels between Egypt and Gaza there provided Hamas with arms. Egypt has rejected the claim, saying its military destroyed all the tunnels about a decade ago.
Israel, said the sources, also wants to retain control of a road that runs the width of the Gaza Strip, known to the Israelis as the Netzarim Corridor. It says this is necessary to prevent Hamas fighters from reaching the northern part of Gaza and subsequently posing a threat to southern Israeli communities. Hamas has insisted that Palestinians displaced by the war must freely return home.
CIA director William Burns, who is also the chief US negotiator on Gaza, said on Saturday that a more detailed ceasefire proposal would be made in the coming days.
The original proposal put forward by Mr Biden in May laid out a three-phase ceasefire in return for the release of Israeli hostages.
The Gaza war started after Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's military response has been a devastating campaign that has killed more than 41,100 Palestinians and wounded over 95,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Vast areas of Gaza's built-up districts have been razed to the ground and most of the enclave's 2.3 million residents displaced, many several times.
A week-long truce in late November saw the release of about 100 Israeli hostages in exchange for more than a hundred Palestinian detainees. Of the estimated 100 hostages who remain in captivity in the Strip, about 40 are believed to be dead.
