Qatari and Egyptian mediators plan to engage with Hamas soon to see if there is a way to push ahead with the three-phased Gaza ceasefire proposal unveiled by US President Joe Biden last month, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Saturday.“We anticipate a back-and-forth between the mediators and Hamas,” Sullivan said.“We’ll see where we stand at that point. We will keep consulting with the Israelis and then hopefully at some point next week we’ll be able to report to you where we think things stand and what we see as being the next step to try to bring this to closure,” he said.
Sullivan spoke to reporters on the sidelines of a Ukraine peace summit and was asked about diplomatic efforts to get an agreement for Hamas to release the remaining 120 hostages held since October 7.Sullivan said he had spoken briefly to one of the main interlocutors, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, and that they would speak again about Gaza on Sunday while both are in Switzerland for the Ukraine conference.
Stumbling blocks to the deal
There are those in Israel, including many relatives of the hostages, who have called on the government to end the war and make the deal.Israel described Hamas’s response to the new US peace proposal as a total rejection and has opted not to send out any further negotiating teams until the terror group has accepted the proposal. The security cabinet is expected to meet on Sunday.Among the basic stumbling blocks to a deal has been Hamas’s insistence that Israel must agree to end the war and withdraw the IDF from Gaza before any deal got underway. The proposal, which calls for a six-week lull in the fighting in Phase 1, leaves that question to be decided before Phase 2 begins.Israel has insisted that any deal must allow to resume fighting so that it can ensure that Hamas does not retain military and governmental control of Gaza.Sullivan said that US officials have taken a close look at Hamas’s response.“We think some of the edits are not unexpected and can be managed. Some of them are inconsistent both with what President Biden laid out and what the UN Security Council endorsed. And we are having to deal with that reality,” he said.He said US officials believe there remains an avenue to an agreement and that the next step will be for Qatari and Egyptian mediators to talk to Hamas and “go through what can be worked with and what really can’t be worked with.”Hamas spokesperson and political bureau member Osama Hamdan told CNN on Friday that it was unclear how many of the hostages were still alive.“I don’t have any idea about that. No one has an idea about this,” he said.Hamdan said that Hamas needs “a clear position from Israel to accept a ceasefire and a complete withdrawal from Gaza and to let the Palestinians determine their future by themselves.“I think if the US administration acted in a positive way, seeing the situation not only in the eyes of Israel, we can reach an agreement soon.”