Netanyahu rejected ceasefire-for-hostages deal in Gaza, sources say
Israeli PM said to have turned down proposal in early talks and continues to take tough line
Benjamin
Netanyahu rejected a deal for a five-day ceasefire with Palestinian
militant groups in Gaza in return for the release of some of the
hostages held in the territory early in the war, according to sources
familiar with the negotiations.
The sources
said the Israeli prime minister rejected the deal outright in
negotiations soon after Hamas militants staged an unprecedented
incursion into Israeli territory on 7 October, killing an estimated
1,400 people.
Negotiations
resumed after the launch of the Israeli ground offensive on 27 October,
but the same sources said Netanyahu had continued to take a tough line
on proposals involving ceasefires of different durations in exchange for
a varying number of hostages.
Others
indicated that negotiations which took place prior to the ground
invasion involved a far larger number of hostages, with Hamas proposing
the release of dozens of foreign nationals captive in Gaza.
The
Israeli prime minister’s office was asked to comment on the hostage
negotiations but had not given a response by Thursday evening.
An
estimated 240 people were taken hostage after fighters from Hamas,
Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other groups based in Gaza, as well as
civilians, crossed the reinforced border fence separating the territory
from Israeli towns and kibbutzim.
Public anger and demands that Israel prioritise hostage negotiations have increased, with families of those held in Gaza rallying outside Netanyahu’s residence earlier this week.
Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Anadolu/Getty Images
According
to three sources familiar with the talks, the original deal on the
table involved freeing children, women and elderly and sick people in
exchange for a five-day ceasefire, but the Israeli government turned
this down and demonstrated its rejection with the launch of the ground
offensive.
Israeli bombardments as well as a
continuing ground invasion of the northern end of the Gaza Strip, home
to 2.3 million people, have killed more than 10,300 people in the past
month and injured in excess of 25,000, according to the Hamas-run health
ministry. Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for Hamas’s militant wing, Izz
ad-Din al-Qassam, has said that the group is unable to release more
hostages amid the mounting attacks.
On
Thursday the US national security council spokesperson John Kirby said
Israel had agreed to daily four-hour “humanitarian pauses”, with the aim
that the small breaks in bombardments could aid the passage of hostages
out of Gaza. Kirby said Israel had also agreed to open a second
corridor for civilians to flee Gaza City.
Lt
Col Richard Hecht, an Israeli army spokesperson, said: “There’s no
ceasefire, I repeat there’s no ceasefire. What we are doing, that
four-hour window, these are tactical, local pauses for humanitarian
aid.”
Palestinian Islamic Jihad released a
video it said showed two hostages, a woman in her 70s and a 13-year-old
boy, held in Gaza. A spokesperson for the group’s military wing said it
was “ready to release them on humanitarian grounds when the security
conditions on the ground are met”. Hecht said the footage amounted to
“psychological terrorism of the worst kind I’ve seen in my life”.
Indirect
negotiations between Israeli officials and Hamas, mediated by Qatar as
the two groups do not officially have contact, have recently focused on
the possibility of a ceasefire lasting between one and three days, tied
to the release of between 10 and 15 hostages.
A
source with knowledge of the negotiations said the push to cease
hostilities for a short time and exchange a small number of hostages was
a litmus test and a gateway to further hostage talks.
Officials
from Egypt and the United Nations and a western diplomat told
Associated Press that the deal on the table would also allow more aid,
including small amounts of fuel, to enter Gaza after Israel largely cut
supplies of food, water, aid and fuel days after Hamas’s incursion. US
officials told AP that the Biden administration suggested linking the
length of the ceasefire to the number of hostages for release.
Negotiations
to free the hostages resulted in the release of four women, including
two American citizens and two Israelis, on 20 and 24 October. The
Egyptian cable news channel Al Qahera said Egyptian mediators were close to reaching a deal that would bring a “humanitarian truce” in Gaza and a hostage exchange.
Noam
Sagi, whose 75-year-old mother, Ada Sagi, is being held hostage, said:
“We have heard plenty of rumours in the past 30 days. We are in the
midst of psychological torture for the last 34 days. Rumours come and
go. We expect from everyone involved to bring all of the hostages back
home now. It is the number one priority.”
Noam Sagi. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/AFP/Getty Images
Yehuda
Beinin, whose daughter, Liat, 49, and son-in-law, Aviv, 49, were
kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz, said the reports emerging about a
ceasefire were “very unclear”.
“What we have
to say to the government of Israel is: it is your job to secure the
release of the hostages. How you go about doing that, that’s your
problem,” the 70-year-old said. “I do not feel that a month has passed
by, I have no concept of time. It’s one big total blur and it’s very
unreal, very unnerving.”
One source with
knowledge of the talks, which slowed after the Israeli ground invasion,
said a central point of discussion was a demand by the Israeli side for
Hamas to provide a full list specifying the name and details of each
person held in Gaza. The Israeli side was unwilling to cease
bombardments without receiving this list.
Hamas
responded that it was unable to provide the list without a pause in the
fighting, as the estimated 240 hostages were held by a number of
different groups in places across Gaza. That suggested even Hamas
leaders do not know for sure how many people are held captive, their
locations or the number who have survived the bombardments.
Another
source said Hamas originally demanded prisoner exchanges, fuel and
other supplies in return for the hostages, but these demands were
dropped in favour of a halt to the airstrikes alone.
“Each
time the Israeli counter-demand got harder,” the source said. Members
of Hamas have previously said they took hostages in order to exchange
them for the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
The
negotiations have also brought splits inside the Israeli establishment
to the fore, pitting hawks in the military, government rightwingers, and
particularly Netanyahu, against the Mossad intelligence agency, which
is the lead agency in hostage negotiations, and some of the generals.
“Each
time a deal would go back to Bibi [Netanyahu] it would come back with
tougher demands,” one source said. Netanyahu has repeatedly publicly
rejected any idea of a ceasefire, and has instead opted to intensify
attacks on Gaza.
In mid-October, the former
Mossad operative David Meidan, who negotiated the release of the Israeli
soldier Gilad Shalit from Gaza over a decade ago, told Haaretz:
“There’s no doubt that the first issue the state has to deal with is
the matter of the captives … The window of opportunity for this is very
narrow. We have to finish this … within a week.”
Israeli troops next to a destroyed building during a ground operation in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. Photograph: Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
Talks
have focused on attempts to find figures within the Israeli camp who
are receptive to the argument that further hostage releases would be
impossible amid an escalation in the fighting.
“The war is moving forward with force that Hamas has never seen,” Netanyahu declared in a forceful speech marking a month since the incursion. “There will not be a ceasefire without the return of our kidnapped.”
Israeli media reported
that the current Mossad director, David Barnea, and the former director
Yossi Cohen recently visited Doha to discuss hostage negotiations.
Their visit, as well as an increased role of the Mossad in negotiations,
appeared to shift discussions towards the possibility of a limited
hostage release tied to a temporary ceasefire.
The
CIA chief, William Burns, visited Cairo and Israel earlier this week,
meeting the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. Burns met the Mossad chief Barnea and the Qatari prime minister in Doha on Thursday.
Sources
briefed on the talks told Reuters that the group discussed allowing
small amounts of fuel into Gaza for humanitarian purposes, which Israel
has so far refused, as well as the deal to free a small number of
hostages in exchange for a ceasefire of one or two days. The outcome of
the talks, however, remained unclear.