Contrary to what one might think from certain media reports, there is still no concrete proposal on the table for another deal to free Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
So far, there are merely ideas raised by the Qatari and Egyptian mediators, with American backing. And there's an understanding of what Hamas' leadership, which is hiding in its underground tunnels in the Gaza Strip and apparently surrounding itself with unwilling human shields in the form of hostages, is likely to demand.
The first hostage deal, which freed 110 Israeli women and children as well as foreign nationals, was reached in late November. Israel viewed the deal, in which Hamas was paid a relatively low price (three Palestinian prisoners for every Israeli), as stemming from heavy military pressure on the organization that made it seek a lengthy cease-fire.
Yahya Sinwar, Hamas' leader in Gaza, apparently had another reason as well. The dozens of female and child hostages had become a burden for him because they (along with the massacre in southern Israel itself) revealed Hamas' murderous cruelty and put it, in the eyes of the international community, on a par with ISIS. Of course, he still has plenty of bargaining chips left even after their release.
But Sinwar made one mistake in his calculations. He assumed that the first deal would lead to lengthy negotiations over another deal and that the Israel Defense Forces wouldn't resume its ground maneuvers in Gaza. In practice, the opposite occurred, and the Israeli offensive resumed immediately after the talks and the cease-fire collapsed.
Hamas' demands in the current round of talks appear to be almost immeasurably higher. And that isn't just because it's demanding a formula of "all for all" – the release of all the hostages in exchange for all the Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, including veteran mass murderers and (apparently) even terrorists from Hamas' elite Nukhba force who took part in the October 7 massacre and were subsequently captured.
A demonstration for the release of the hostages at the Tel Aviv Museum Square, on Sunday.Credit: Tomer Applebaum
Hamas also seeks to obtain two other things, which are related to each other – a lengthy cease-fire and a commitment that its leaders won't be harmed. At first glance, these are very soft commitments that would be hard to enforce over time. After all, Hamas has systematically violated every previous cease-fire, including on October 7, thereby enabling Israel to evade its own commitments and embark on additional founds of fighting.
Nevertheless, Israeli agreement to such a deal would mean the end of the war in its current format. Moreover, it would constitute an admission by the government and the army that they have failed twice – at the start of the war, and in achieving the ambitious goals they set for themselves after it began, of defeating Hamas and dismantling its capabilities.
Some senior government and military officials argue that Israel has no choice because these goals clash with the goal of the release of all the hostages, and that goal is the only one that is truly achievable right now.
In their view, the state's terrible failure on October 7, which left families in communities near Gaza and partygoers at the Nova festival vulnerable to murder, rape and captivity, morally obligates us to free them, even at the price of admitting failure, which in practice means accepting a Hamas victory in the war (though hopefully only temporarily).
And for Hamas, the goal is no longer a temporary lull but starting down a road that ends in a cease-fire that ensures the survival of its rule and protects its senior officials from harm.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will find it very difficult to accept such a deal. First, that's because alongside an admission of failure in the war, it would involve an unprecedented concession with regard to freeing terrorists. Second, that's because it would almost certainly lead to the collapse of his governing coalition due to the departure of his extremist partners, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, and their parties.
For now, Netanyahu is avoiding a decision and playing for time. On the one hand, every day or two he scatters empty promises about continuing the war until victory. On the other, he is sending vague answers to Hamas via the mediators, thereby creating the appearance of negotiations without real progress toward reaching a deal.
Last week the hostages' families achieved something important for their loved ones' well-being – a deal, through Qatari mediation, to send them the medicines they need, though there is still no word on how we will know this has actually been done. Netanyahu rushed to announce that he "ordered" Mossad director David Barnea to reach the deal. But in practice, this doesn't seem to do anything to advance the hostages' return home.
Over the past few days, there has been a revival of the public campaign for the hostages' release, both in Israel and abroad. This apparently stems from the realization that the hostages don't have time.
People hold posters depicting Israeli hostages in Gaza during the event "100 days 100 voices" to mark 100 days since the October 7 Hamas attack, calling for their release, in front of the Opera Bastille in Paris, France, on Sunday.Credit: Gonzalo Feuntes/Reuters
The IDF has already announced the deaths of 20 out of 136, based on intelligence and sometimes forensic evidence. And descriptions by released hostages make it clear that given the time that has elapsed, the difficult conditions in which the remaining hostages are being held and their captors' murderousness, their lives are at immediate risk.
This is apparently the reason for the change in public opinion revealed by several polls over the last week. These polls slow that supporters of a deal, even at the price of "all for all," slightly outnumber opponents.
That seems unlikely to change Netanyahu's mind. But the dilemma will soon reach the doorstep of his temporary partners in the government and the war cabinet, ministers Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot.
To their credit, both of them (much more than Netanyahu, who once again misled the public on this issue at his press conference Saturday night) are in regular contact with the hostages' families and aren't afraid of the criticism being hurled at them. But that won't be enough.
Sometime soon, possibly even in the next few weeks, the two might have to decide whether to pull their National Unity Party out of the coalition, despite the clear danger that this would increase the far right's influence over the government's decisions.
Member of the war cabinet, Benny Gantz, at a press conference at the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, on Sunday.Credit: Noam Revkin-Fenton/Flash 90
This is a known risk, but Gantz and Eisenkot will have to ask themselves whether their strategy of sticking with Netanyahu has exhausted itself, and whether it isn't allowing him to survive despite the fact that he isn't truly advancing the goals of the war.
The U.S. administration is correct. The war in Gaza is, to a large extent, stuck. Evidence of this can be found in the daily press statements summing up the previous day's events and incidents that the IDF spokesperson sends to all the newspapers.
Most of these incidents involve airstrikes killing terrorists after they have been spotted by the ground forces. The number of terrorists killed generally ranges from 10 to 20 per day. The summary also reports on destroyed tunnels and weaponry and the discovery of weapons production facilities.
This, more or less, is what the fighting is now achieving. And it's hard to view this as a victory. The IDF is largely static. Division 162's activity in northern Gaza is minimal; it primarily entails raids on specific targets, alongside maintaining a presence on the outskirts of built-up areas.
Photographs published over the weekend of masses of Palestinians thronging the market in the Jabalya refugee camp reveal the reality: In places where the IDF doesn't maintain a permanent presence, the Palestinians who were in hiding are trying to resume their lives. Hamas is even making an effort (so far weak) to restore signs of governance.
IDF troops at the Gaza border, on Sunday.Credit: Menahem Kahana/AFP
There is a more massive military presence near the Gaza River, where Division 99 is cutting Gaza in two; in the refugee camps of central Gaza, where Division 36 is operating; and in Khan Yunis, where Division 98's major operation to locate Hamas' strategic tunnels is continuing. Nevertheless, progress on all these fronts is slow and isn't expected to change the face of the war anytime soon.
For now, Israel is even refraining from deciding on an operation in Rafah, despite its fear that without dealing with the tunnels there, Hamas will find it easy to reconnect to its oxygen supply of smuggled weapons and rebuild its military capabilities while Egypt turns a blind eye.
The situation on the northern border is no more encouraging. On Sunday, Hezbollah's antitank fire killed Barak Ayalon, 48, a civilian member of the security squad at Moshav Kfar Yuval, and his mother Mira Ayalon, 76. In another incident, five soldiers were wounded and three terrorists, apparently from a Palestinian organization, were killed after they crossed the northern border into the Har Dov region.
The IDF is racking up tactical successes against Hezbollah, which has suffered 10 times as many casualties or even more. Nevertheless, there has been no change in the strategic situation along the border, and no diplomatic solution allowing residents of northern Israel to return to their homes is visible on the horizon.