By Andrew Mills and Nidal al-Mughrabi
DOHA/CAIRO (Reuters) – Negotiators will meet in Doha on Tuesday to finalize details of a plan to end the war in Gaza after U.S. President Joe Biden said the ceasefire and hostage-free deal he had been pushing for was “on the brink”. achievements to achievements.
Mediators gave Israel and Hamas a final draft of the deal on Monday, an official familiar with the talks said, after a midnight “breakthrough” in talks involving envoys from the outgoing US president and President-elect Donald Trump.
“The deal … would free the hostages, stop the fighting, provide security for Israel and allow us to significantly increase humanitarian aid to the Palestinians who have suffered terribly in this war started by Hamas,” Biden said in a speech Monday to highlight his foreign policy achievements. .
If successful, the cease-fire agreement would cap more than a year of start-and-stop negotiations and lead to the largest release of Israeli hostages since the early days of the conflict, when Hamas released about half of its prisoners in exchange for 240 Palestinians captured by Israel.
An official briefed on the talks, who did not want to be identified, said the text for a ceasefire and the release of hostages was presented by Qatar to both sides at the talks in Doha.
“I think there’s a good chance we can get this done … the sides are one step away from making this deal,” Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Monday.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the ball is in Hamas’s court. Hamas has said it wants to reach an agreement.
An Israeli official said negotiations were at an advanced stage for the release of up to 33 hostages as part of the deal. According to Israeli authorities, 98 hostages remain in Gaza.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters: “There is progress, it looks much better than before. I want to thank our American friends for the tremendous efforts they are making to secure the hostage deal.”
“Negotiations on some key issues have progressed and we are working to conclude what remains soon,” the Hamas official said.
Israel launched its assault on Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed across its borders in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
Since then, more than 46,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials, with much of the enclave devastated and most of the population displaced.
For months, the warring parties have generally agreed on the principle of a halt to fighting in exchange for the release of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian detainees held by Israel. But Hamas has always insisted that the deal must lead to a permanent end to the war and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, while Israel has said it will not end the war until Hamas is disbanded.
TRUMP’S INAUGURATION IS SEEN AS A DEADLINE
Trump’s inauguration on January 20 is now widely seen as the de facto deadline for a ceasefire agreement. Trump said there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages held by Hamas were not released before he took office.
Blinken said negotiators wanted to be sure Trump would continue to support a deal on the table, so the presence of Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, along with Biden’s envoy Brett McGurk, at the ceasefire talks was “critical.”
An Israeli official who briefed reporters on the proposed deal said its first phase would allow the release of 33 hostages, including children, women, some of whom are soldiers, men over 50, and the wounded and sick.
On the sixteenth day of the armistice, negotiations would begin on the second phase during which the remaining living hostages – male soldiers and able-bodied men – would be released and the bodies of the dead hostages returned.
The deal would see a gradual withdrawal of troops, with Israeli forces remaining in the border perimeter to defend Israeli border towns and villages. There would be security arrangements in the Philadelphia Corridor, along the southern edge of Gaza, and Israel would withdraw from parts of it after the first few days of the deal.
Unarmed residents of Northern Gaza would be allowed to return, with a mechanism to ensure that weapons are not moved there. Israeli troops will withdraw from the Netzarim corridor in central Gaza.
An Israeli official said Palestinian militants convicted of murder or deadly attacks would also be released, but the numbers would depend on the number of hostages alive, which is still unknown, and would not include fighters who took part in the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
