The Jerusalem Post has listed five misunderstood points regarding the three-stage prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas, which has been under negotiation since US President Joe Biden proposed it on May 31.
In her news analysis, Tova Lazaroff, the newspaper’s deputy editor, noted that the debate in Israel about who was behind the undermining of the agreement did not center on Hamas, but rather on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his “red lines,” particularly the Israeli military’s retention of control of the Philadelphi Corridor.
Netanyahu’s opponents, she said, tend to believe that a deal could be concluded within an hour if the prime minister authorised the army to withdraw “temporarily” from the Philadelphi Corridor.
The newspaper reviewed the five points in the form of questions and answers as follows:
1- Can the whole deal be completed soon?
Lazarov, in her analysis, answers this question in the negative. She attributes this to the fact that the negotiations are now focused only on the first stage of the agreement, which concerns reaching a 6-week truce during which some of the “hostages” between the ages of 18 and 32 will be released.
Both Hamas and Israel agreed to the original framework first unveiled by the US president on May 31, which divided the proposed agreement into three phases, with the details of each phase to be negotiated separately. The negotiations are still in their first phase.
2- Is Netanyahu killing the deal by talking about the Philadelphi Corridor?
The sticking point in the deal is not limited to Netanyahu’s public insistence that the Israeli military maintain this buffer zone between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, which a US official described as “unhelpful” from the Israeli prime minister. According to the US, the Philadelphi corridor was never a major topic of discussion in last week’s talks in Doha.
3- What are the other outstanding points?
The details of exchanging Palestinian prisoners held in occupation prisons for Israeli prisoners held by Hamas, in the Americans’ opinion, constitute one of the main obstacles to concluding the deal, especially after the killing of the six prisoners whose bodies were recently found inside a tunnel in the Gaza Strip.
It is expected that about 800 Palestinian prisoners will be released in exchange for about 18 to 32 Israeli prisoners.
4- Did Hamas agree to the deal?
The Americans say Hamas has agreed to the proposed framework for the deal, not to any other proposal. While Hamas officials have spoken of their support for the July 2 version of the deal, the United States has stressed that it has not backed such a formula, leaving the issue of a prisoner swap to be negotiated in detail at a later date.
5- Is the United States offering another deal to negotiate?
In her news analysis, Lazaroff quotes US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew as saying that the White House is pushing to finalize the details of the first phase of the currently proposed agreement and does not want to cancel it. This is a move that the Jerusalem Post’s deputy editor believes could take negotiations back to square one.