Two back-to-back diplomatic stands, one from the States and one from Israel, mark the eleventh month of war with six hostages being recently executed in Gaza. The United States said that Israel agreed to remove its military from the densely populated areas along the Philadelphi Corridor, also known as Saladin Axis, as part of a truce prisoner swap deal.
“The deal itself, the proposal, and the bridging proposal that we started working with included the removal of Israel Defense Forces from all densely populated areas, including those areas along the corridor. That’s the proposal Israel agreed to,” said the White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday.
Kirby added as well that US President Joe Biden has, in numerous conversations with Netanyahu, as with counterparts in Qatar and Egypt, stressed the importance of “doing everything” to conclude this proposal, which, according to him, “was an Israeli proposal agreed to at the end of May.”
“The United States is desperate for a ceasefire for two reasons: the elections and Iran. If a deal happens, the electors, both Jewish and Muslim, may favor this more, and also the threat of Iran and its proxies may ‘cease’ according to them, but Israel knows this is not the case,” Daniel Diker, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, told The Media Line.
Negotiations
Meanwhile, Netanyahu on Monday signaled that he wouldn’t compromise on this issue and demanded control of the corridor in any ceasefire deal, stalling once again negotiations for the release of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
“The corridor is the oxygen of Hamas. No one is more committed than me to freeing the hostages. No one will preach to me on this issue,” Netanyahu affirmed in a press release on Monday. “Netanyahu will never accept to give up the corridor completely. There could be minor changes, mainly in the number of troops and their deployment, but there will still be an Israeli military presence. If Israel withdraws from Gaza, it won’t be able to enter back afterward,” Zaki Shalom, professor at the Misgav Institute, explained to The Media Line.
“America is not able to exert significant pressure on Israel right now. Biden’s biased approach in the past months has damaged America’s reliability in the region and has shown his moderate response to American citizens’ deaths. So, if the States try to push for a change of the agreement, this will lead to the final loss of its credibility as an ally all over the world, plus democrats will lose Jewish voters at the elections, which may favor Trump.”
Diker agreed that pulling out of the Philadephi corridor would be catastrophic for Israel and would symbolize a victory for Hamas since it is a strategic military site.
After eleven months of war and still no deal, the country's citizens remain skeptical of a ceasefire solution.
According to The Israel Democracy Institute, August 2024 Israeli Voice Index—conducted by IDI’s Viterbi Family Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research—Jewish Israelis are overwhelmingly pessimistic (78.5%) regarding the chance for a ceasefire deal that would lead to a release of hostages. Arab Israelis are divided evenly between optimistic (48%) and pessimistic (49%) about a deal. Across the sample, 73.5% are pessimistic, and about 21% are optimistic.
Just on the eleventh month of the war, American Federal prosecutors filed criminal charges against senior Hamas leaders this Monday for the deaths of at least 43 American citizens in Israel on October 7th.
“As of the date of this complaint, at least 43 American citizens were among those murdered by the group, and at least 10 were taken hostage or remain unaccounted for”, affirmed the document.
“The timing is too little too late; this should have been done months ago. Although, this move gives America financial leverage in the area of terror financing and sets a precedent for cooperation with Israel to do the same thing. It is not totally pointless to do this now, but it is more symbolic,” Diker explained.
On Sunday, Hersh Goldberg Polin, an American-Israeli citizen, was found dead in a tunnel in Rafah with five other hostages. His death reopened the wound among those Israelis who have been demonstrating for the end of the war and the return of the captives over these months.
“The chances of an agreement now are very small; it may end up with another failure. Hamas knows the value of the hostages, which are its warrant. Meanwhile, Israel seems unmoving on the Philadelphi corridor,” Shalom concluded.
“We saw the Israeli policy colliding with the American one over the months. I think that America actually prefers a weaker Israel, which is more dependent on the States’ choices and less self-sustaining,” Diker concluded.
Giorgia Valente is a recent graduate of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and an intern in The Media Line’s Press and Policy Student Program.