Hamas on Monday accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of putting hurdles in front of ceasefire negotiations, with talks aimed at reaching a truce-hostage release deal set to renew this week.
In a statement, the terror group claimed that it was offering “flexibility and positivity” in the talks, while Netanyahu “is placing additional obstacles in the way of the negotiations.” The statement appealed to mediators to interfere against what it called “maneuvers and crimes” by the prime minister, accusing him of waging “psychological warfare.”
The statement came a day after Netanyahu appeared to take mediators as well as some Israeli officials by surprise when he issued a list of four non-negotiable demands ahead of the resumption of talks.
The list included a guarantee that Israel would be allowed to return to fighting in Gaza “until its war aims are achieved,” a key sticking point during months of indirect negotiations with the terror group. The statement from Netanyahu’s office was met with anger by anonymous Israeli security officials and mediators, who, not for the first time, accused the prime minister of trying to sabotage the deal in order to ensure the survival of his imperiled government.
Following up on Hamas’s statement, Ismail Haniyeh, the terror group’s Qatar-based chief, pointed to reports of intensifying IDF activity in Gaza City as having the potential to sabotage the barely restarted talks.
A statement on the Hamas Telegram channel Monday evening said that Haniyeh had told mediators during a call that he held Netanyahu and the Israeli army fully responsible for the potential collapse of negotiations, and that an escalation in fighting could push things back to “point zero.”
Officials from Israel, Egypt and the US met in Cairo on Monday to discuss reopening the Rafah Crossing and preventing weapon smuggling across the Egypt-Gaza border, according to the Walla news site. The US team is led by White House Middle East czar Brett McGurk and CIA director Bill Burns, while Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar is leading the Israeli delegation.
Netanyahu’s Sunday statement also included an avowal that “weapons smuggling to Hamas from the Gaza-Egypt border will not be possible,” a point aimed squarely at the talks over the future control of the shuttered Rafah Crossing.
Later this week, Mossad chief David Barnea is expected to head to Doha for continued talks on a possible truce-hostage release deal, which have ramped up after Hamas issued a response last week to the latest framework for an agreement.
According to a report in the Associated Press on Monday, several officials in the Middle East and the US believe the level of devastation in the Gaza Strip caused by nine months of fighting helped push Hamas to soften its demands for a ceasefire agreement.
In recent internal communications seen by the AP, messages signed by several senior Hamas figures in Gaza urged the group’s exiled political leadership to accept the ceasefire proposal put forward by US President Joe Biden in a speech at the end of May.
The messages, shared by a Middle East official familiar with the ongoing negotiations, described the heavy losses Hamas has suffered on the battlefield and the dire conditions in the war-ravaged territory. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to share the contents of internal Hamas communications.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met on Monday with the family members of those Israelis still being held hostage in Gaza, telling them that Israel needs to translate the gains of its military pressure into a deal to bring the captives home.
“The entire defense establishment sees the return of the hostages as the main goal to be pursued, to do everything we can to take advantage of the situation that has been created,” Gallant said, according to a statement from his office.
“The military pressure has created conditions that allow us to move forward with a deal, the military will know how to halt and how to return to combat as needed,” the defense minister added. “We need to take advantage of the military pressure to push forward with a deal and not to miss it.”
The Israeli-drafted outline for a hostage deal and truce in Gaza that Biden presented at the end of May proposed a phased deal that would include a “full and complete” six-week ceasefire that would see the release of a number of hostages, including women, the elderly, and the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners.
During these 42 days, Israeli forces would also withdraw from densely populated areas of Gaza and allow the return of displaced people to their homes in northern Gaza.
Over that period, Hamas, Israel, and mediators would also negotiate the terms of the second phase that could see the release of the remaining male hostages, both civilians and soldiers, in return, Israel would free additional Palestinian security prisoners and detainees. The third phase would see the return of any remaining hostages, including bodies of dead captives, and the start of a years-long reconstruction project.