Gaza Hostage Negotiators, Scrambling To Avoid ‘Hell’ Trump Threatens, Are Reportedly Near Deal for Israeli, Yank Hostages

UPDATED AT 4:05 P.M. EDTWith a week left in President Biden’s term, a draft of a deal between Israel and Hamas — prompted by President-elect Trump’s threats — for the release of some Gaza hostages and a temporary cease-fire is reportedly nearing completion. Reported terms of the deal seem to mirror President Reagan’s 1981 announcement, during his first hours in office, that American hostages held in Iran were on a plane back home. According to the Doha outline, military activity in Gaza would cease temporarily in the deal’s first phase as 33 of the 98 remaining hostages are released.Hamas is reportedly yet to list how many of those freed in that phase are alive. While final details are being worked out, the first-stage release would include American citizens, three of whom are presumed to be living.The first releases would likely coincide with the start of Trump’s presidency. Most terms of the nearly concluded deal, though, were proposed months ago. In a Monday afternoon speech to sum up his foreign policy, Mr. Biden took credit. “We’re on the brink of a proposal that I laid out in detail months ago finally coming to fruition,” he told an audience at the Department of State.After speaking with Prime Minister Netanyahu and the emir of Qatar, Mr. Biden praised the yet-to-be concluded agreement: “The deal we have structured would free the hostages, halt the fighting, provide security for Israel, and allow us to significantly surge humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians who have suffered terribly in this war that Hamas started.”Israel and America in June drafted a complex formula for a phased deal that serves as a blueprint to the current agreement. Yet, since then negotiations have been stuck. The dynamics reportedly changed dramatically in recent days, after Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, joined Mr. Biden’s negotiator, Brett McGurk, at Doha. Over the weekend Mr. Netanyahu sent the Mossad chief, David Barnea, and other top officials to Doha. The expected breakthrough followed Trump’s threat of “hell” to pay if hostages are not released by the time he is inaugurated next Tuesday.“It’s very clear that President Trump threatening Hamas and making it clear that there is going to be hell to pay is part of the reason why we’ve made progress on getting some hostages out,” the vice president-elect, J.D. Vance, told Fox News Sunday, during which he also for the first time partially spelled out what “hell” means. “Number one, it means enabling the Israelis to knock out the final couple of battalions of Hamas and their leadership,” Mr. Vance said. “It means very aggressive sanctions and financial penalties on those who are supporting terrorist organizations in the Middle East” — which could include Hamas-supporting Qatar. Emir al-Thani of Qatar on Monday afternoon invited the Doha-based Hamas leadership to his palace to pressure them to agree to the proposed deal. In Israel, hospitals and other relevant institutions were told on Monday to prepare to treat hostages who could be released at any time. While a deal is widely believed to be close at hand, it is yet to be finalized, officials at Jerusalem say. In the past, deals were not reached due to differences between the relatively compliant Hamas leadership at Doha and the men who actually hold the hostages in Gaza. The commander of Hamas in Gaza, Mohammed Sinwar, reportedly is yet to give his final okay, Kan News reported Monday. Family members of hostages, including some who are presumed to be on the list of those to be released in the first stage, insist that any deal must include all of the hostages. Some fear that those who are not released immediately will ultimately be left behind to be killed. A deal, several Israelis argue, must be made in one swoop, rather than in phases. “Let’s hope this is a start of a process to release all 98 hostages, following 465 days of their suffering, starvation, and torture,” a member of a Tel Aviv-based lobbying group, the Hostage Families Forum, Daniel Carmon, tells the Sun. “Any deal must include all the hostages with no exceptions. All of them. Now.”According to the proposed three-stage deal, 33 hostages would be released in the first stage, including women, children, men over age 50, and a small number of injured “military age” men — which Hamas defines as under the age of 50. That phase would last 42 days and is expected to include hostages with American citizenship. Israel would release more than 1,300 convicted Palestinians held in prisons, including convicted killers and hundreds who are serving life terms. In the second and third phases, the remaining hostages would be released.At the same time, Palestinian residents of northern Gaza who were evacuated would return to their homes. A mechanism for cessation of hostilities would be established, while questions remain over Israel’s presence at the Gaza-Egyptian border. Israeli opponents of the proposed deal fear that it would allow Hamas to retain power in Gaza. Some argue that the freed terrorists would resume their deadly activities. Government officials acknowledge the likely drawbacks, but are saying that the release of hostages is now urgent.“Whoever thinks that terrorists would not return to their nefarious activities is mistaken,” the minister of agriculture, Avi Dichter, a former internal security intelligence chief, said. Yet, he added, “we will be able to deal with it.”

Gaza Hostage Negotiators, Scrambling To Avoid ‘Hell’ Trump Threatens, Are Reportedly Near Deal for Israeli, Yank Hostages

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