The latest proposal for a hostage release deal was submitted to the Israeli negotiations team on Monday evening in Cairo by the mediator countries, Qatar, Egypt, and the US. The proposal includes an Israeli compromise on permitting an unlimited return of residents to the northern Gaza Strip, in exchange for some flexibility on Hamas’s part regarding what security prisoners with Jewish blood on their hands are to be released by Israel. Now the world awaits the response of the mastermind of the October 7 massacre, Yahya Sinwar, through the Hamas delegation which is staying in Cairo.
According to the Qatari Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, Hamas officials said on Monday that “no progress was made” in the new round of negotiations, and that Israel’s position remained “unchanged,” yielding no acceptable results regarding a potential truce in Gaza.
And then Hamas announced overnight Tuesday that it is examining the “stubborn” proposal that was formulated in Cairo, noting that it does not meet its demands.
Hamas said they would give their answer to the mediators, noting with disappointment that “The offer we received from the mediators Qatar and Egypt does not meet any of the demands of the Palestinian factions.” However, the terrorist group indicated that it would study the proposal, which it described as “uncompromising.”
A senior American official told Ynet he believed the chances of reaching a hostage deal are about 60%.
ONLY YAHYA AT THE HELM
At this stage, it is clear that Hamas today is no longer run by a committee comprising civil and military officials who run the group’s various institutions. Today only Yahya Sinwar makes decisions for Hamas, and he will have the final say on a new deal.
And being a far better negotiator than the US or Israel, Sinwar must be aware that he is already winning broad concessions from his enemies without doing anything. The IDF pulled out of southern Gaza without expecting anything in return from Hamas. Monday saw the largest number of humanitarian aid trucks – 419 – enter Gaza from both Egypt and Israel, plus aid coming in through the new port Israel erected, again, at no cost to Hamas.
Sinwar is a certifiable psychopath, but he’s not a fool. He can continue to do nothing while complaining that the Israelis are too stubborn, and meanwhile, his organization will resume its governmental functions – delivering aid it did not pay for and controlling parts of Gaza the IDF has left behind.
DEAD HOSTAGES
There may be another reason why Sinwar is not responding to a hostage deal, regardless of how many Hamas criminals Israel is willing to release. Hamas may be unable to produce most of the 130 or so hostages who are unaccounted for. Not as a bargaining ploy, but because they are dead.
This scenario has been suggested by several Israeli media outlets: the Israelis who were not visited by the Red Cross and are supposedly living in despicable conditions, wounded and abused, may not be alive. They could have been murdered at the early stage of the war, as IDF forces are discovering on the ground. And since Israel is willing to pay the same price for the bodies of dead hostages as it would for living ones, it was more cost-effective to kill them than care for them.
THE LATEST 2-STATE MANEUVER
Meanwhile, the Netanyahu Government is quietly supporting the Palestinian Authority’s takeover of Gaza. Amos Harel reported in Haaretz on Tuesday that two aid convoys that entered Gaza from Israel in early April had been fired on by Hamas. It turns out that those convoys were controlled by agents of the PA’s general intelligence apparatus, under the command of Majed Faraj.
Harel noted that the PA continues to pay the salaries of Fatah operatives and members of its security apparatus in Gaza, most of whom have not been on the job since 2007, when Hamas forcibly took control of the Strip and expelled the PA’s senior representatives, some of them by being dunked from rooftops.
EVERYBODY LOVES HAMAS
Hamas continues to win, as Israeli officials have suggested, expressing their frustration at the dramatic expansion of humanitarian aid that is brought onboard hundreds of trucks into the Gaza Strip from Jordan and the Ashdod port and also through the Erez crossing, providing large amounts of food, water, and medicine every day, even as US and European media are bewailing Israel’s “weaponized starvation” of Gaza civilians.
Whatever Hamas is receiving now is free of charge, care of the Biden administration and the good Arab Americans of Dearborn, Michigan.
But not only the US is doing Hamas’s bidding. On Monday, more than 40 family members of the hostages sent a letter to War Cabinet Ministers Yoav Galant, Benny Gantz, and Gadi Eisenkot, as well as Shas Chairman Aryeh Deri, who frequently attends the War Cabinet meetings, urging them to publicly support the latest hostage deal.
“We expect you to go public and clearly support the promotion of a deal, and not allow Smotrich and Ben Gvir to force the Prime Minister to torpedo the deal that is on the table,” the 40 family members demanded. They did not send a copy to the prime minister.
They also didn’t specify what deal they were talking about – mostly because there isn’t any.
