Hamas is prepared to release all of the remaining hostages at once in exchange for a permanent ceasefire, a senior Palestinian official familiar with the ongoing truce talks told The Times of Israel on Wednesday.
Amid Israel’s longstanding rejection of this type of trade, Hamas is still prepared to release a number of hostages as part of a renewed temporary ceasefire.
However, Hamas wants guarantees from the mediators that Israel will agree to subsequently enter negotiations on ending the war, said the Palestinian official, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has to date refused to do.
Hamas has insisted on sticking to the original terms of the January deal, which envisioned a transition to phase two on March 2. That phase is supposed to see the return of all remaining living hostages in exchange for the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a permanent end to the war. While Netanyahu signed onto the deal, he has long rejected the latter two clauses of phase two, arguing they would allow Hamas to remain in power. Accordingly, he has largely refused to hold talks regarding phase two of the deal, which were supposed to begin on February 2.
Israel resumed intensive military operations throughout the Gaza Strip on March 18 and over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed since, according to the enclave’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its unverified figures.
While Hamas for months refused to accept proposals to extend phase one of the deal, the senior Palestinian official told The Times of Israel that the terror group recently submitted such a proposal.
Asked why Hamas was willing to propose an extension of phase one after long insisting that it would only agree to release additional hostages in phase two, the senior Palestinian official responded, “We had no other choice. The situation in Gaza is terrible” — an apparent indication that Israel’s military pressure and ban on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza have taken a toll.
The senior official said the latest Hamas offer was very similar to the one US special envoy to the Mideast Steve Witkoff presented last month, which would secure the release of five Israeli hostages.
However, the proposal also included guarantees from the mediators that Israel would agree to hold talks on the phase two permanent ceasefire once the truce extension is in place.
But Israel rejected the latest Hamas offer and countered with its own proposal for the release of 11 hostages that does not include a commitment to hold talks on a permanent ceasefire, the Palestinian official said, adding that this was not acceptable to Hamas. “The talks are now at a standstill.”
Separately on Wednesday, Reuters — citing an unnamed official — reported that Hamas has decided not to respond to Israel’s counter-proposal
“The number of hostages is not the issue. If Israel demonstrates its intention to reach a permanent ceasefire, [Hamas is] prepared to release all of the hostages,” the Palestinian official told The Times of Israel. “Israel only wants a partial agreement so that it can continue fighting. It wants [Hamas] to give up all the hostages without entering the second phase.”
While Hamas leaders will not agree to leave Gaza or disarm, the terror group is prepared to cede governing control of the Strip to independent Palestinian technocrats and agree to a years-long truce with Israel that includes “security arrangements,” the senior Palestinian official claimed.
Hamas “will never disarm” before a Palestinian state has been created “because [it is] a resistance movement,” the official said.
The senior Palestinian official then called into question what he described as the erratic conduct of the Trump administration in the ongoing hostage negotiations, pointing to its willingness to dispatch hostage envoy Adam Boehler to meet directly with Hamas officials earlier this year before abruptly ending those talks following Israeli pushback.
“How can you reach an agreement without speaking directly to [Hamas]? They were willing to do this with the Taliban,” the senior Palestinian official noted.
Witkoff appeared to principally argue in favor of direct talks with anyone the US is dealing with during an interview last month, but he ordered Boehler to halt the direct talks with Hamas shortly after they were leaked to the media last month, according to a US official familiar with the matter.
The senior Palestinian official said US President Donald Trump is the only person capable of ending the war but has currently decided to “give Netanyahu a green light to open the gates of hell on Gaza.”
Fifty-nine of the 251 hostages kidnapped during the Hamas-led October 7 onslaught remain in captivity. Twenty-four of the remaining hostages are still alive, according to Israeli intelligence assessments. Over 100 hostages were released during a weeklong truce in November 2023 and an additional 33 were released during the first phase of the deal earlier this year.
Over 50,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, whose unverified figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Roughly 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, were killed during the October 7 attack that sparked the war. Israel’s toll in the subsequent ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 410, including a police officer killed in a hostage rescue mission and two Defense Ministry civilian contractors.