A professional-level team of Israeli negotiators is expected to head to Doha on Wednesday to continue talks for a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal in the aftermath of the dramatic rescue of one of the captives Qaid Farhan Alkadi, 52, during an IDF operation in the tunnels.
“There are still more people waiting,” Alkadi told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he spoke with him by telephone after the rescue, referring to the hostages still held in Gaza.
The Israeli team to Doha includes representatives of the IDF, the Mossad, and the Shin Bet, a source told The Jerusalem Post. The team had been in Cairo on Monday but returned to Israel for consultations.
Egypt and Qatar with the help of the US have been the main mediators for the deal.
“The delegation is expected to continue working with the mediators to reduce the gaps” on issues of dispute regarding the framework agreement, the source explained.
“The delegation is expected to meet with the representatives from Egypt, Qatar, and the US, who continue to conduct talks with both Israel and Hamas, the source explained.
At issue is a framework agreement that US President Joe Biden unveiled on May 31, which the United Nations Security Council endorsed in June. Both Israel and Hamas have agreed to that framework but lack consensus on how it should be executed.
One of the main stumbling blocks to have emerged is Israel’s insistence that the IDF must retain control of a critical buffer zone between Egypt and Gaza, known as the Philadelphi Corridor. Hamas has stood firm on its demand for a full IDF withdrawal.
The teams are discussing issues relating to the release of Palestinian security prisoners and terrorists in exchange for the remaining 108 hostages, including whether those prisoners would be exiled and if Israel would have the ability to veto some of the names of the terrorists Hamas wants to see freed.
Israel has also sought to increase the number of live hostages that would be freed in the first phase of what is a three-phase deal.
Netanyahu's statements
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel was “working relentlessly to return all of our hostages.”
“We are doing this in two main ways: Negotiations and rescue operations. The two of these together require our military presence on the ground, and constant military pressure,” Netanyahu said. “We will continue to act until we return all of them home.”
His critics have argued that the only way to ensure that the hostages are released is to agree to withdraw IDF forces from the Philadelphi Corridor, which the army captured only in May and June.
They have noted that most of the freed hostages were released as part of the deal in November.
The US has hoped that a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, would avert a wider IDF war with Hezbollah and would thwart a direct Iranian war with Israel.
Iran has said it would back any Gaza ceasefire deal that had Hamas’s support. Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed al-Thani, who has been one of the critical negotiators for a deal, visited Tehran on Monday where he discussed the agreement with the country’s president and foreign minister.