Hamas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traded barbs on Monday over who is delaying the implementation of a three-phased hostage deal that has been on the table since May 31.
“Netanyahu has once again returned to the strategy of procrastination, delay, and evasion from reaching an agreement by setting new conditions and demands,” Hamas said in a statement it posted on its website on Monday.
It spoke up one day after CIA Director William Burns held a high-level round of negotiations in Rome with Mossad chief David Barnea, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Al Thani, and Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel.
The talks were brief and Barnea went and returned on the same day. Barnea had presented to the negotiators a list of clarifications to the May 31 proposal, which included a number of points Netanyahu had raised as his redlines.
The Prime Minister’s Office responded to Hamas, stating that “Hamas leadership is preventing an agreement.”
“Israel stands on its principles according to the original outline: Maximizing the number of living hostages, Israeli control over the Philadelphi Corridor, and preventing the passage of terrorists, weapons, and ammunition to the northern Gaza Strip,” the PMO stated.
Netanyahu has focused in particular on the issue of the critical buffer zone at the Gaza-Egypt border known as the Philadelphi Corridor.
In case it falls apart
Media outlets have also reported that Israel wants to be able to pre-approve the list of hostages who would be freed in the first phase of the deal, which is expected to last for six weeks, in exchange for the Israeli release from its jails of security prisoners and terrorists.
During those 42 days, there would be a lull in the war. On day 16, the two sides are expected to begin talks on the possibility of a permanent ceasefire deal.
The original proposal would allow Israel to resume fighting should those talks fail, and the release of the remainder of the live hostages in phase 2, would not take place until there was an agreement on the issue of a ceasefire.Hamas said it “listened to the mediators about what happened recently in the Rome meeting regarding the ceasefire negotiations and prisoner exchange.”It said it was clear Netanyahu had set “new conditions and demands, in which he backed down from what the mediators conveyed as part of the May 31 proposal.”Hamas noted that Israel authored the proposal, which was unveiled by US President Joe Biden on May 31 and then endorsed by the UN Security Council.Security officials have said Netanyahu could be more flexible and that the IDF could even temporarily withdraw from Gaza during the six weeks that make up phase 1 of the deal. Relatives of the hostages have called on Netanyahu to make a deal now.Netanyahu has insisted that he has not made any changes to the framework of the May 31 proposal and that his principled points fall within the framework of the deal.
He had waited to send a team to Rome until after he had met with Biden at the White House last week to make sure that there was no daylight between Washington and Jerusalem.
The Prime Minister’s Office stated on Monday that, “Israel neither changed, nor added any condition to, the outline. On the contrary, as of now, it is Hamas which has demanded 29 changes and has not responded to the original outline.”US National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby told reporters Monday that the talks Netanyahu and his team held with US officials last week were “very constructive” and “certainly nothing that discouraged us in terms of trying to close the remaining gaps” with “respect to the ceasefire deal.”The US still believes that those gaps can be eliminated but to do so is “going to take compromises” and “leadership,” Kirby said.The Hostage and Missing Families Forum said it had asked members of the security cabinet, the negotiating team, and the heads of the security branches to update the public on why a deal had not been reached.They demanded to know which conditions were included and/or excluded “in complete opposition to the promises given to the president of the United States during the prime minister’s visit to Washington, and contrary to the initial Israeli position in the negotiations,” they stated.