Amid a torrent of expectations that a ceasefire agreement and prisoner exchange between Israel and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) will soon be reached, a Haaretz newspaper report today revealed that the two parties have not reached any agreement, considering that optimism about that is premature.
The newspaper’s most prominent military analyst, Amos Harel, highlighted the reality of what is happening in the talks, and said: “As usual, it is recommended that optimistic reports about the unprecedented progress in negotiations on the hostage deal be treated with a great deal of caution. Positive developments have indeed occurred recently, but “As far as we know, the two parties have not yet reached an agreement.”
Harel also quoted Israeli security sources who denied reports that Hamas had handed over, through intermediaries, lists of the names of its prisoners, with full details about their condition, indicating that it is not known whether Hamas will be able to locate all the kidnapped people yet.
Two variables
The Haaretz military analyst points out that the atmosphere of optimism in reaching an agreement, which is spread by senior officials in Israel, in the mediating countries, and in the United States, lies in two main variables:
The first variable is the influence of US President-elect Donald Trump At the beginning of the week, he repeated his demand to complete the deal by the time he takes office on January 20, otherwise “it will be bad and bitter,” as he put it. Pointing out that “all parties take this seriously.”
The second variable – according to his claim – is that “Hamas has become alone, after Hezbollah took itself out of the game Through the ceasefire that was forced to be agreed upon with Israel at the end of last November, while Iran was still dealing with the damage resulting from the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.
But Amos Harel points out at the same time the main obstacle standing in the way of reaching an agreement, which is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not want to complete the second phase of the agreement and stop the war. He said, “It is clear to all parties that Netanyahu wants to return to fighting, and does not actually intend to complete the phase.” Second, complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
In this context, he confirms that the mediators assure Hamas that once Israel agrees to move forward with the deal, it will be difficult for the Israeli government to withdraw from implementing the second phase, due to pressure from the United States and internal pressure from the families of the kidnapped.
Harel addresses the pressure that Netanyahu is exposed to from his partners on the extreme right, especially National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who warns against releasing Palestinian prisoners in general, and continues his ambitions to launch a settlement project in the Gaza Strip, in addition to his threats to sabotage the budget approval (in The framework of his demand for the dismissal of the government’s legal advisor, lawyer Gali Bhairav Meara).
Complexities of prisoners
Then the Haaretz analyst moves on to talk about the complexities of the prisoner exchange process, and says, “One of the main obstacles is related to clarifying a simple fact: How many living hostages are held by Hamas? According to security services’ estimates, their number is less than half of the 100 abductees who are still in the Gaza Strip.”
He added, “In order to move forward, Hamas will have to hand over an organized list of the names of the abductees, but here two sub-problems arise. The first is that there are abductees held by smaller Palestinian organizations or local crime families. The second is that there are likely to be abductees who will be identified as missing.” They died during or shortly after the October 7 attack, and it is not clear where they were buried.”
Then the writer raises a question related to Hamas’ demands in the negotiations, and says, “What is the key according to which Hamas is prepared to release the hostages? How many Palestinian prisoners does it demand to be released, and how many of them are considered to have high sentences in exchange for handing over every hostage it returns?”
Harel concludes by stressing that the phased plan for the ceasefire deal and the release of prisoners has been discussed repeatedly, and is based on a phased deal that first includes a humanitarian deal (women, the elderly, the wounded, and the sick, whose situation is more difficult than others), followed by the release of civilians and soldiers, which requires Israel to be Flexible in the first phase and reduce its presence in the Philadelphia axis on the Egyptian border, and perhaps also in the Netzarim axis, without a complete withdrawal in the first phase.
