Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and the hostage negotiations team commented on the reports of a single-stage deal that would see the release of all hostages and the safe exile of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, N12 news reported on Thursday.
Earlier reports by Maariv claimed the deal was a work in progress that had been leaked, while KAN News reported that the deal had been presented to US President Joe Biden.
The Jerusalem Post was unable to confirm the status of the alleged deal or its contents.
According to KAN News, the proposed deal includes the release of all hostages, a safe passage for Sinwar and others who choose to leave, the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons, the demilitarization of Gaza through a control mechanism, and an end to the war.
An Israeli security official speaking with KAN stated, "Due to difficulties in negotiations and the ticking clock regarding the abductees' lives, we wish to propose a 'secondary plan' that would shorten the stages and allow for a faster agreement. This will happen if Sinwar leaves and ends the war. It will also help us achieve the goals of the war while enabling the Hamas leadership in Gaza to leave safely."
Regarding the oversight of Gaza's demilitarization, including dismantling Hamas' tunnel networks and military capabilities, Maariv reported that several options are under consideration, including a force composed of American troops and Sunni Arab states or contracting a private company to secure critical areas.
According to Maariv, a senior Egyptian official informed the Americans that Sinwar insists on securing his safety, meaning Israel would commit not to target him after the deal.
Support from hostage families
Israel’s chief negotiator for hostages and missing persons, Gal Hirsch, spoke to Bloomberg the previous week, mentioning the idea of offering Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar safe passage out of Gaza in exchange for the 101 hostages held by the terror group. KAN added that Hirsch also met with the hostages' families to brief them on the possible deal.
According to N12 news, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon, the IDF official overseeing the issue of captives, stated, "The proposal that Gal Hirsch submitted to the US is not known to the negotiating team; Hirsch was never part of the negotiating team."
N12 news added that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stated he was unfamiliar with the new proposal.
Following the comments from Gallant and the hostage negotiations team, the Families' Headquarters for the Return of the Hostages stated: "Gal Hirsch has once again chosen to carry out a cynical, cheap, and disgraceful manipulation at the expense of the hostages, their families, and the people of Israel. This is a deception aimed at thwarting the new American initiative for the release of the hostages and ending the war in Gaza."
"This act of deception joins a long line of deals sabotaged by Netanyahu and his partners, once again proving that Netanyahu has decided to abandon the hostages," they added.
In Cairo on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated statements that US officials have made in past weeks, noting that out of the 18 points in the first phase of the deal, 15 have already been agreed upon.
“We’ve made a tremendous amount of progress over the last month, month and a half,” Blinken told reporters. “There are, I think, in the agreement, 18 paragraphs, and 15 of them are agreed on.”
“But the remaining issues need to be resolved. We put forward, with the Egyptians and the Qataris, ideas for resolving them,” he said.
Two of the final stumbling blocks are Israel’s insistence on an IDF presence along the Philadelphi Corridor and issues related to the swap of hostages for Palestinian security prisoners and terrorists in Israeli jails.
Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report.