Israel and Hamas are “on the brink” of agreeing to declare a cease-fire in Gaza and release hostages held there, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Tuesday, raising hopes for some respite to the fighting after more than 15 months of war.
“It’s right on the brink, it’s closer than it’s ever been before,” Mr. Blinken said at an Atlantic Council event in Washington. “But right now as we sit here we await final word from Hamas on its acceptance. And until we get that word, we’ll remain on the brink.”
Neither Israeli nor Hamas officials have publicly confirmed their position on the cease-fire proposal, although Mr. Blinken suggested that Israel was on board with the agreement and that its fate now rested with Hamas.
The latest round of negotiations follows repeated failures to reach a breakthrough, and U.S. officials have made optimistic remarks in the past only to see discussions falter.
But in recent weeks, officials familiar with the talks have expressed increasing hope for a deal.
Officials in both the Israeli government and Hamas have suggested that they are ready to move forward if the other side signs off. On Monday, a Hamas official said a deal was possible in the coming days as long as Israel did not suddenly change its positions. On Tuesday, an Israeli official said Israel was ready to close the deal and was waiting for Hamas to make a decision.
In recent weeks, too, officials familiar with the talks have suggested that a looming deadline was helping to close the gap: the end of President Biden’s term and President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
Mediators had “managed to minimize a lot of the disagreements between both parties,” Majed al-Ansari, the spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry, told reporters on Tuesday. The talks were focused on “the final details of reaching an agreement,” he said.
But mediators, which also include Qatar, Egypt and the United States, and other officials have warned that even substantial progress could be dashed at the last minute. Each of the previous rounds of negotiations over the past several months ultimately broke down in mutual recrimination.
“We believe that we are at the final stages, but until we have an announcement — there will be no announcement,” said Mr. al-Ansari, adding that there was no immediate timeline for signing a deal.
Mr. Trump has warned that there will be “all hell to pay” unless the hostages are freed by the time he becomes president. Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s pick for Middle East envoy, has also made trips to Qatar and Israel, meeting with top officials there, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Saturday.
If Hamas and Israel conclude an agreement, it would bring some relief to Palestinians in Gaza, who have endured miserable conditions in displacement camps and relentless bombardments by Israel, and for the families of hostages abducted from Israel, who have worried for more than a year about the fate of their loved ones.
“I pray this time the return is real,” said Manar Silmi, 34, a psychologist with an international aid group, who was hoping to head back to the Gaza City home she had fled early in the war. “We’ve suffered more than enough.”
A framework agreement had been sent to both sides, said Mr. al-Ansari, who said the talks now centered on “outstanding details” about how the deal would be implemented.
In a statement, Hamas also said that the negotiations “had reached their final stages.” The Palestinian armed group’s leadership “hoped that this round of talks would end with a complete and clear agreement,” Hamas said.
Hamas officials negotiating in Doha must obtain the consent of the group’s remaining military commanders in Gaza for the emerging deal. Those commanders include Mohammad Sinwar, whose brother Yahya led the group before being killed by Israel in September. Communicating with them can be difficult, leading to delays.
It was still not clear whether Mr. Sinwar had conveyed to Hamas leaders in Doha his position toward the proposed agreement.
The framework of the deal was heavily inspired by previous proposals discussed in May and July, said a diplomat familiar with the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the volatile negotiations. Those proposals detailed a three-stage cease-fire in which Israeli troops would gradually withdraw from Gaza, as Hamas released hostages in exchange for Palestinians jailed by Israel.
For over a year, international efforts have failed to end the war ignited by the October 2023 Hamas-led attack that killed around 1,200 people. Another 250 were taken hostage to Gaza, according to the Israeli authorities.
In response, Israel launched a military campaign against Hamas that destroyed large areas of the enclave and killed at least 45,000 people, according to Gaza health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Around 105 hostages were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November 2023, the bodies of others were recovered by Israeli troops, and a handful were rescued alive. Roughly 98 hostages are now believed to remain in Gaza, around 36 of whom are presumed dead by the Israeli authorities.
During the first phase of the cease-fire — which would last roughly six weeks — Hamas will release 33 named hostages, most of whom Israel believes are alive, said an Israeli official, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks. Israel is willing to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange, the official said, but the number depends on how many of the hostages are still alive.
Eli Albag, whose daughter Liri, 19, was abducted from the military base where she served during the Hamas-led attack, met with Mr. Netanyahu on Tuesday evening alongside other relatives of hostages.
Mr. Netanyahu projected optimism, Mr. Albag said. But he said he still found it hard to think about what it might be like to welcome his daughter home.
“We want to see the deal signed first,” he said. “After that, we’ll make room for other thoughts.”
But while there is significant public pressure in Israel to reach a deal to free the hostages, many Israelis also fear that a cease-fire would effectively leave Hamas in power in Gaza, allowing its fighters to ultimately regroup and plan more attacks months or years down the road.
Two of Mr. Netanyahu’s hard-line coalition allies — Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich — have already denounced the proposed agreement as effective surrender to Hamas. The two far-right parties could threaten Mr. Netanyahu’s government if they withdrew from his ruling coalition in protest.
The agreement would likely still go through, as Israel’s parliamentary opposition has mostly committed to giving Mr. Netanyahu a safety net to secure a cease-fire and hostage deal. But it is unclear how long that would last, as it would leave Mr. Netanyahu’s political future dependent on rivals who have vowed to oust him.
In Gaza, Montaser Bahja, a displaced English teacher sheltering in Gaza City, said Palestinians were starting to feel hopeful that a deal could be imminent after more than a year of hunger and deprivation.
But even if both sides declared a cease-fire, many Gazans were frightened by a postwar future that was also far from certain, Mr. Bahja said. And even if Hamas’s deal secured the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, few would see it as an achievement given the scale of the death and devastation in Gaza, he added.
“Everything is up in the air,” he said. “At this point, people just want to it end.”
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