If a deal is reached, it would not go into effect immediately. The plan would need approval from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet and then his full cabinet. Both are dominated by Netanyahu’s allies and are likely to approve any proposal he presents.
Officials have expressed optimism before, only for negotiations to stall while the warring sides blamed each other. But they now suggest they can conclude an agreement ahead of the January 20 inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump, whose Middle East envoy has joined the negotiations.
Hamas said in a statement that negotiations had reached their “final stage”.
In the October 7 attack, Hamas-led militants killed around 1200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted another 250. Around half of those hostages were freed during a brief ceasefire in November 2023. Of those remaining, families say, two are children, 13 are women, and 83 are men.
Fifteen-month-old Massa Zaqout in her family’s tent at a camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip on Tuesday.Credit: AP
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 46,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were combatants. Many photographs of victims from the war cannot be published, given their graphic nature.
Israeli strikes across Gaza into Tuesday killed at least 18 Palestinians, including two women and four children, according to local health officials, who said one woman was pregnant, and the baby died as well.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Israel says it only targets militants and accuses them of hiding among civilians.
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli army strike early Tuesday morning in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.Credit: AP
A three-phase agreement
The three-phase agreement – based on a framework laid out by US President Joe Biden and endorsed by the UN Security Council – would begin with the release of 33 hostages over a six-week period, including women, children, older adults and wounded civilians, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian women and children imprisoned by Israel.
Among the 33 would be five female Israeli soldiers, each to be released in exchange for 50 Palestinian prisoners, including 30 militants who are serving life sentences.
The Israeli official said Israel assumes most of the 33 are alive.
During this 42-day phase, Israeli forces would withdraw from population centres, Palestinians could start returning to what remains of their homes in northern Gaza, and there would be a surge of humanitarian aid, with some 600 trucks entering each day.
Destroyed buildings by Israeli bombardments are seen inside the Gaza Strip from southern Israel, on Tuesday.Credit: AP
Details of the second phase still must be negotiated during the first. Those details remain difficult to resolve – and the deal does not include written guarantees that the ceasefire will continue until a deal is reached. That means Israel could resume its military campaign after the first phase ends.
The Israeli official said “detailed negotiations” on the second phase would begin during the first. He said Israel would retain some “assets” throughout negotiations, referring to a military presence, and would not leave the Gaza Strip until all hostages were home.
The three mediators have given Hamas verbal guarantees that negotiations will continue as planned, and that they will press for a deal to implement the second and third phases before the end of the first, the Egyptian official said.
The deal would allow Israel, throughout the first phase, to remain in control of the Philadelphi corridor, the band of territory along Gaza’s border with Egypt, which Hamas had initially demanded Israel withdraw from. Israel would withdraw from the Netzarim corridor, a belt across central Gaza where it had sought a mechanism for searching Palestinians for arms when they returned to the territory’s north.
In the second phase, Hamas would release the remaining living captives, mainly male soldiers, in exchange for more prisoners and the “complete withdrawal” of Israeli forces from Gaza, according to the draft agreement.
Hamas has said it will not free the remaining hostages without an end to the war and a complete Israeli withdrawal, while Netanyahu has vowed in the past to resume fighting until Hamas’ military and governing capabilities are eliminated.
Unless an alternative government for Gaza is worked out in those talks, it could leave Hamas in charge of the territory.
In a third phase, the bodies of remaining hostages would be returned in exchange for a three- to five-year reconstruction plan for Gaza under international supervision.
Blinken was making a last-minute case for a proposal for Gaza’s postwar reconstruction and governance that outlines how it could be run without Hamas in charge.
Growing pressure ahead of Trump’s inauguration
Israel and Hamas are under renewed pressure to halt the war before Trump’s inauguration. Trump said late on Monday a ceasefire was “very close”.
Dozens of protesters, including relatives of hostages, formed a human chain overnight outside Israel’s parliament, demanding the deal be sealed.
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“This is the chance, we can’t let it go until they are all here with us,” said Shay Dickmann, whose cousin in Gaza has been declared dead by the military.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, families of Palestinian prisoners gathered as well. “I tell the mothers of the prisoners to put their trust in the almighty, and that relief is near, God willing,” said the mother of one prisoner, Intisar Bayoud.
And inside Gaza, an exhausted Oday al-Halimy expressed hope from a tent camp for the displaced. “Certainly, Hamas will comply with the ceasefire, and Israel is not interested in opposing Trump or angering him,” he said.
A child born in Gaza on the first day of the war, Massa Zaqout, sat in pink pyjamas in another tent camp, playing with toys. “We’re eagerly waiting for a truce to happen so we can live in safety and stability,” her mother, Rola Saqer, said.
AP
