Israel is braced to receive a non-negotiable Gaza hostage deal on the table from mediating countries Qatar, Egypt and the United States.
“I think that what will happen in the end” is that “there will be a kind of take it or leave” deal which US President Joe Biden would put forward “together with the Egyptians and the Qataris,” Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday morning.
“Then we will have to take a decision” because “it won’t be negotiable again,” he said.
Edelstein speculated that his latest draft could more likely be authored by Qatar and Egypt and might include terms less favorable to Israel, when compared to the bridging proposal the US had put on the table in August.
“We are now pretty much on the same page with the Americans. “I think that there will be a Qatari, Egyptian proposal that will be put on the table together with Biden, or coordinated with Biden.
“We are now pretty much on the same page with the Americans” with regard to the terms of the deal, Edelstein said.
“I'm not sure [this next proposal] will be as okay as the American proposal [was] for us,” he said, in referencing the latest draft of the deal, which at its core had actually begun with a text authored by Israel.
Edelstein spoke in the aftermath of the return to Israel of six hostages executed by Hamas over the week and as talks for a deal which the US had once described as the “final game,” conversations had failed to immediately produce a final agreement.
Edelstein acknowledged that “We have to get out of the situation where we are stuck and do something. I'm not getting into specific details of why, what, or how, but I think that it's not helpful to be stuck for such a long time.”
Mossad Chief David Barnea, who has been one of the key figures in the Israeli negotiating team, was in Doha on Monday and spoke with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Thani about a deal for the return of the remaining 101 hostages in Gaza, of which 66 are esteemed to be alive.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a public press conference on Monday night after the six executed hostages had been buried. He underscored that he would be flexible on many of the deal's terms but would not agree to withdraw IDF forces from a critical buffer zone known as the Philadelphi Corridor.
Biden holding talks on a deal
Biden held talks with his top team at the White House on Monday about a deal, even though it was Labor Day weekend in the US.
Among the six dead was Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, who held dual Israeli-American citizenship.
Biden has wanted Hamas that it will pay a price for the death of the hostages and told reporters before the White House meeting that Netanyahu had not done enough to finalize a deal.
Biden said he remained hopeful that a deal was possible and that he was working with Qatar and Egypt on a proposal to give to Israel and Hamas.
"We're in the middle of negotiations,” he told reporters, but he clarified that these talks were not with Netanyahu.
"We're still in negotiations -- not with him [Netanyahu], but with my colleagues from Qatar and from Egypt."