Qatar, which has been mediating, reportedly gave both Israel and Hamas a draft on Monday of a ceasefire agreement to end the war in Gaza, the Reuters news agency reported, citing an official familiar with the talks.
“I think the pressure is building for Hamas to come to yes, and I think Israel also has achieved a huge amount of its military objectives in Gaza, and therefore, they are in a position to be able to say ‘yes,'” U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters.
Sullivan said Israel and Hamas had been close to a deal before, and things had fallen through, but on Monday there was a “general sense that this is moving in the right direction.”
“The question is now, can we all collectively seize the moment and make this happen?” Sullivan said.
“We are in advanced stages of negotiations,” an Israeli political source told CBS News, saying a deal could be agreed in hours or days. “There is progress in all components of the agreement formula.”
What has been happening with the Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks?
Israel and Hamas have been holding indirect talks for more than a year aimed at ending the war in Gaza and returning scores of hostages in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
The Biden administration has been pushing for a deal before the end of his term and Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. On Sunday, President Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the phone about the ongoing negotiations. The White House said the two leaders discussed the deal based on the arrangement outlined by Mr. Biden last year.
The deal presented to Israel and Hamas appears similar to that arrangement, according to a copy of the deal from mediator sources seen by CBS News and a senior Israeli official.
The deal consists of three phases, according to the copy viewed by CBS News, each one to be negotiated as things progress.
During the first phase, which would take place over a 42 days ceasefire period, Hamas would release 33 women and children hostages, as well as hostages over 50 years old. For each woman or child hostage returned to Israel, Israel would release 30 Palestinian women and children from its prisons. Hamas would release all hostages over 50 years of age, and Israel would release 30 Palestinian prisoners aged 50 or older.
On the first day of that ceasefire, Hamas would release 3 hostages, according to the document viewed by CBS News. On the seventh day, Hamas would release 4 hostages. Thereafter, Hamas would release 3 hostages taken from Israel every seven days, starting with the living and then moving on to return the bodies of those who have died.
During the exchange of hostages and prisoners, there would be a complete ceasefire in Gaza to allow aid to enter, the draft viewed by CBS News said. International aid groups and the United Nations would resume operation in Gaza, and reconstruction of its infrastructure, like water, electricity and sewage systems, would begin. There would also be negotiations over the next phase of the deal.
The second phase of the deal would involve the release of all the Israeli male hostages and the withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza, according to the document viewed by CBS News.
The third phase, which would be partially negotiated during earlier phases, would include the exchange of bodies of deceased hostages and prisoners, the beginning of the reconstruction of Gaza, and the opening of its borders.
Despite intense mediation by the United States, Qatar and Egypt, the talks have repeatedly stalled over several key issues including the details of the exchange, whether the ceasefire would be permanent and the withdrawal of Israeli forces.
As each side has accused the other of backtracking, the war has ground on.
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed each day in Israeli strikes, and most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are huddled in squalid tent camps, their neighborhoods in ruins. Humanitarian groups struggle to deliver desperately needed aid, and experts have warned of famine.
In Israel, families of the hostages have held weekly rallies demanding a deal for their release, fearing their loved ones will die in the harsh conditions of their captivity the longer the fighting drags on.
What have the main points of contention been in coming up with a ceasefire deal?
Hamas and other groups are still holding around 100 hostages captured in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel that ignited the war, in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250. The Israeli military has declared a third of the hostages dead but suspects that the true number could be around half.
Hamas is demanding the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including senior militants convicted of orchestrating attacks that killed civilians. Israel is reluctant to free such prisoners, especially since one of the masterminds of the 2023 attack, the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israel in October, was a former prisoner released in such a deal.
The two sides have exchanged lists of names, with Israel demanding more information about which hostages are alive to ensure they come out first.
Hamas has said it won’t release the remaining hostages without assurances that the war will end. Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 46,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to local health authorities, who don’t say how many of the dead were militants.
Hamas likely fears that Israel will resume its offensive — and step up its intensity — once the hostages are out and the militants no longer have their most valuable bargaining chip.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to do just that. He has said Israel won’t end the war until it has destroyed Hamas’ military and governing abilities and ensured that the Palestinian militant group no longer poses a threat.
The lack of trust goes both ways: Israelis fear that Hamas will drag out negotiations over the second phase of the deal, extending the ceasefire indefinitely while the hostages languish.
Talks have almost collapsed over disagreements
The talks nearly collapsed last summer when Netanyahu said Israel would maintain a lasting presence in the Philadelphi corridor, a strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border.
Israel says Hamas has long smuggled weapons into Gaza through tunnels beneath the corridor and that it must control the area to prevent Hamas from rebuilding. Egypt, a key mediator, says it blocked the tunnels years ago and is opposed to any Israeli presence on the Gaza side of its border.
Israel has also demanded a mechanism for inspecting people returning to their homes in northern Gaza, from which around a million people fled following Israeli evacuation orders at the start of the war. Their return is a key Hamas demand, the details of which are still being worked out.
Israel says people returning to the north should be searched for weapons. That would probably require an Israeli presence in what’s known as the Netzarim corridor, a strip of closed roads and military installations stretching from the border to the sea just south of Gaza City.
The Palestinians are opposed to any permanent Israeli occupation, though Hamas has reportedly shown flexibility on the timetable of the Israeli withdrawal.
Israel says Hamas can never again rule Gaza but has yet to endorse a realistic plan for an alternative government. With no internal rivals, Hamas has been able to quickly regroup after Israeli operations, even in the hardest-hit areas, and still controls much of the territory.
The Biden administration has long pushed for a grand bargain in which a reformed Palestinian Authority would govern postwar Gaza with the support of Arab and Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, which would also take the historic step of forging ties with Israel.
But Arab and Muslim leaders say they will only sign onto such plans if they include a pathway to a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem and Gaza, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.
Israel’s government is opposed to Palestinian statehood and has ruled out any role for the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. Netanyahu says Israel will maintain open-ended security control while delegating governance to politically independent Palestinians. But none appear to have volunteered, and Hamas has threatened anyone who cooperates with Israel in running the territory.
Hamas has said, however, that it’s willing to relinquish control of Gaza to other Palestinians. Late last year, it agreed to an Egyptian-brokered plan for a group of independents to govern the territory under the auspices of the Palestinian Authority, which has yet to accept the proposal.
Hamas has also demanded the lifting of a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt after it seized power in 2007, which experts say is needed for Gaza to be rebuilt.
The lifting of the blockade, however, would allow Hamas to claim a major victory and to eventually rebuild its military capabilities. That’s another nonstarter for Israel.
Haley Ott, Marwan Al-Ghoul, Michal Ben-Gal and Mais Al-Bayaa contributed to this report.
Hamas, Israel, Gaza Strip
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