Hostage Deal, Growing Close With a ‘Breakthrough,’ Could Yet Fail To End Region-Wide War

As American and Israeli officials say that a ceasefire deal and freeing of hostages is “closer than ever,” few can envision an end to the region-wide war that Hamas launched on October 7 on Iran’s behalf. “We’ve had a breakthrough on what has been a critical impasse in the deal,” a Washington official told reporters Thursday, following a phone conversation between President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu. For the first time in months, Mossad chief David Barnea, rather than lower-level negotiators, traveled to Doha on Friday to work on the deal. Mr. Netanyahu authorized the trip after Hamas, through Qatar and Egypt, delivered a message that reportedly removed a major stumbling block to a hostage deal. The proposed deal, as detailed by Mr. Biden, included a first 42-day phase of lull in military activities in return for the release of 33 hostages and release of hundreds of terrorists in Israel’s prisons. After two additional phases all 120 hostages, including dead bodies, would be released, leading to a permanent ceasefire and Gaza rehabilitation. Hamas has now removed its demand that even before the limited release in the first phase, America would guarantee a permanent war ending. It was a non-starter, and Hamas now has withdrawn that demand, leading Mr. Biden to tell Mr. Netanyahu that “it is time to close the deal,” Axios reports.Yet, negotiations are expected to last several weeks before the deal’s details are worked out. In the meantime, the Israel Defense Force would maintain military pressure in Gaza, hoping to completely dismantle the remaining Hamas battalion, holed up at Rafah in southern Gaza. One stumbling block to a deal is a likely demand by Hamas that Israel withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor, on Gaza’s border with Egypt. Israel is unlikely to agree, at least before the IDF completely destroys the tunnels there. For decades the corridor has served as the main arms-smuggling artery to the terrorists. IDF control of the corridor, as well as its elimination of organized battalions has led Hamas to a “desperate desire for a ceasefire and a deal at any cost,” a retired Brigadier General, Jacob Nagel, a former top security adviser to Mr. Netanyahu, writes in the Jerusalem post.“If there is a chance to reach a deal that Israel can accept, it is only by increasing the military pressure, not by reducing it.” Yet, he adds, the hostages’s horrific conditions, as well as pressure from their families, would “not allow such an approach.” A non-government lobbying group, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, is one of Israel’s most effective civil operations. “We are not a political organ,” a senior member of the mostly volunteer staff told the Sun in a recent visit to the group’s Tel Aviv headquarters. Yet, its efforts, along with other groups, keep the pressure on the government.“In the coming days we will need to make a very painful decision,” a former IDF chief of staff, Knesset member Gadi Eizenkot, told Channel 12 news Friday. Along with his party leader, Benny Gantz, Mr. Eizenkot left Mr. Netanyahu’s war cabinet last month, after joining it in the aftermath of October 7. “Although it might break the ruling coalition, the government must now favor a hostage release,” he says.Some of Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition partners, including the interior security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, and the finance minister, Betzalel Smotrich, are threatening to desert the premier if he agrees to the hostage deal.Mr. Netanyahu ‘s top principle in negotiations over the deal is the “commitment to ending the war only after achieving all of its goals,” he told Mr. Biden Thursday, according to the prime minister’s office.According to Mr. Eizenkot, however, these goals are yet to be updated even after nine months of war in Gaza and Lebanon. Back in December, he says, the cabinet debated whether to direct the bulk of the military efforts to the northern front, fighting Hezbollah, rather than to Hamas in Gaza.Some in Israel now say the time has come to do just that. The IDF has made major advances in southern Lebanon, eliminating top Hezbollah commanders and pushing the terrorists away from the border. Hezbollah is retaliating. It launched 150 missiles and dozens of drones on northern Israel Thursday, igniting huge fires and killing an IDF commander. Officially, Hezbollah says it would cease the attacks it launched on October 8 only when Israel ends the Gaza war. Signaling increased cooperation, the Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallah, on Friday met at Beirut with Hamas’s deputy Gaza commander, Khalil Al-Hayya, to coordinate next moves. The Hezbollah-Hamas axis is part of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s “ring of fire” strategy to surround Israel with proxy armies. Their goal is to grind down, and eventually eliminate the Jewish State. Victories in Rafah tunnels or Beirut bunkers are important, but wars will end only when Tehran feels threatened.

Hostage Deal, Growing Close With a ‘Breakthrough,’ Could Yet Fail To End Region-Wide War

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