Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is actively sabotaging the possibility of any hostage deal, in order to prevent the collapse of his government, by introducing two new elements into the negotiations, sources told The Jerusalem Post.
He insists that the IDF must remain in control of the critical buffer zone between Egypt and Gaza known as the Philadelphi Corridor, which had been an area of intense weapons smuggling for Hamas.
The prime minister has also demanded that no armed Hamas forces would be allowed to return to northern Gaza.
According to sources, Israel had already reached a deal with Egypt to use a mix of above-ground sensors at the Philadelphi Corridor – which Israel would have control over – and a new below-ground, thick barrier to block Hamas from rearming even after IDF forces would hand the area over to a mix of Egyptian and possibly United Arab Emirates forces.
Further, Hamas still has massive amounts of weapons in northern Gaza.
As such, sources said Hamas forces do not need to physically bring weapons back to northern Gaza so preventing them from returning physically armed achieves nothing other than political slogans.
Netanyahu only cares about keeping Ben Gvir from toppling government
Sources ridiculed Netanyahu’s two new demands as irrelevant from a security perspective, alleging that he cared only about keeping National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir (Otzma Yehudit) from toppling his government. As such, the sources said, he was proactively destroying any prospects of a deal.
Netanyahu has been very public with his demands regarding the Philadelphi Corridor and north Gaza, setting them out last week as negotiators from the Mossad and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) participated in talks in Cairo and Doha.
The issue of the Philadelphi Corridor and north Gaza were part of five redlines he spelled out, which he said fell within the framework of the original three-phase proposal US President Joe Biden unveiled on May 31.
Hamas initially balked at accepting that proposal, insisting that Israel must agree to a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip including the Philadelphi Corridor before any talks could take place.
It then dropped that demand and accepted the process laid out in the deal, by which some 33 to 18 hostages would be freed in phase one in exchange for a lull to the war and the release of Palestinian security prisoners and terrorists held in Israeli jails.
On day 16 of phase one, which is set to last for six weeks, talks would begin on the issue of a permanent ceasefire. Hamas has since asked for 29 changes, according to Netanyahu. It has attempted in other de-facto ways to re-insert the issue of a permanent ceasefire.
The prime minister said earlier this week that he planned to adhere to the May 31 hostage proposal and would not budge a millimeter from it. His redlines, he said, fall within the framework of that Biden proposal.
Sources said, however, that issues relating to north Gaza and the corridor had been part of Israeli negotiating positions earlier. Jerusalem had explicitly dropped these demands in order to reach the current Biden framework, which was the breakthrough that allowed a return to full negotiations.
Sources with knowledge have said that Hamas’s huge concession could have led to the deal being wrapped up this week and by next week, and a bunch of hostages would already have returned to their homes.
The underlying framework that Mossad Director David Barnea, Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar, and IDF Maj.-Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon brought Hamas to agree to some weeks ago, sources said, would allow Israel to get hostages back as part of a 42-day lull in the war during phase one of the deal.
Netanyahu has spoken of his efforts to ensure the maximum number of live hostages released in phase one and has set it as one of his redlines.
If the sides would not reach an understanding about a permanent ceasefire at the end of phase one, Israel could then have restarted its Gaza operations, having already received a significant portion of the hostages still in Hamas’s hands, given that there are some estimates that only 50-70 of them are still alive.
But as the negotiations to bang out the implementation of the already agreed upon Biden framework were coming out, Netanyahu added at least two new critical conditions that, according to sources, pulled the rug out from under Israel’s negotiators.
Sources say that all of the involved negotiators will still do the best they can to move something forward, and will not quit their involvement in the talks, though there is concern that this time Israel will be blamed by the US for the talks’ failure.
The United States, however, has firmly insisted that Israel is committed to the talks, with State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller stressing on an almost nightly basis that talks are ongoing.
He has issued these statements even after Israel’s assassination attempt against Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif. Sources indicated no feeling that Hamas was backing out of the talks.
Issues with the talks have taken place alongside Biden’s highly problematic debate performance and former US president Donald Trump’s survival of an assassination attempt.
Sources have speculated that Netanyahu is more confident that Trump will win reelection and feels less pressure to align his long-term strategic plans with Biden’s demands.