Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to send negotiators for hostage deal talks with US, Egyptian, and Qatari officials in Paris on Friday after declining to participate in a previous round of talks.
The decision came after Brett McGurk, President Biden’s top Middle East official on the National Security Council, met with officials in Israel on Thursday. According to a report from Axios, McGurk asked that Israeli negotiators be sent to Paris.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told McGurk that Israel “will expand the authority given to our hostage negotiators” but is also “preparing to continue intense ground operations” in the Gaza Strip.
Benny Gantz, an Israeli war cabinet minister, has threatened Israel will launch a full-scale assault on Rafah by the beginning of Ramadan, March 10, if Hamas doesn’t release the Israeli hostages. The deadline doesn’t give negotiators much time to reach a deal before the assault, which would kill a huge number of civilians, as the city is packed with 1.5 million Palestinian civilians.
The deal the Biden administration is pushing would involve a six-week truce, but it’s unclear if Hamas would go for it since the Palestinian group has been trying to negotiate an agreement for a permanent ceasefire. Hamas’s latest known proposal was for a 135-day ceasefire, but it was strongly rejected by Netanyahu.
The Axios report said the main sticking point between Israel and Hamas is over the number of Palestinian prisoners Israel would release. Hamas’s proposal called for the release of at least 1,500 Palestinians.
According to Haaretz, Israeli officials believe “that Hamas may be willing to show more flexibility regarding the number of Palestinian prisoners that Israel will release and their identities, but they stress that the organization will persist in its efforts to exploit the deal to end the fighting in the Gaza Strip.”
For their part, Hamas is blaming the lack of a deal on Israel’s unwillingness for a ceasefire. “The obstacles are being put down by the occupation, not Hamas, as the occupation doesn’t wish to commit… to a ceasefire. Nor does it want to withdraw its forces from Gaza, nor does it want to lift the blockade from Gaza,” Mohammed Nazzal, a member of Hamas’s political political bureau, told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
Anyone else sees the irony, the paradox, the hypocrisy? So we gave Israel the gun to hold to the head of everyone of the 1.5 million Palestinian civilians to force them to release Israeli hostages without a guarantee of a permanent ceasefire? It sounds like that same gun already assassinated negotiations before purchasing the flight tickets to Paris.
Nice vacay though.
Count the silverware, Macron.
Lol
I tend to see method in it. Benny Gantz says 3/10 is the deadline; so, at the 11th hr, out of “a decent respect for the opinion of mankind,” they have to put on a show. Furthermore, as Israel/Washington needs a breathing space to reload for the war against Hezbollah (and possibly Iran), they may well make concessions (they can always take more hostages, etc.)
Netanyahu says Hamas in its entirety must be destroyed for Israel to be safe
That’s basically what he’s been saying from the beginning. Now, would that be something a person being held kidnapped would want to hear?
Agreed. It’s one sure way to end negotiations. Switching subjects, I thought you’d enjoy this: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GHBxjB_W8AEsG8J?format=jpg&name=large
A while back the EU gave the Egyptian government millions of dollars in return for taking in 200,000 Sudanese refugees….I wonder if there is some deal in the works for Egypt to get paid by the US and EU to take refugees, while the IDF just kills off the rest by bombs and starvation?
The Axios report said the main sticking point between Israel and Hamas is over the number of Palestinian prisoners Israel would release. Hamas’s proposal called for the release of at least 1,500 Palestinians.
Oh please. The only “sticking point” is how Israel can continue the onslaught while bullshitting the world into believing they give an ounce of shit about their own kidnapped victims.
Have you watched this? Napolitano has a great informative show since he left cable news. Israel can never exist peaceably as a Zionist supremacist state:
Alastair Crooke: Israeli and Middle Eastern Relations
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rVA3rB7Ljrg
Hamas will out survive Genocide Joe & Butcher Crime Minister…!
Probably so they can positively ID the Palestinian negotiators and then assassinate them.
On a completely unrelated note why is the link just below this news item on the front page broken? It is entitled:
“Israeli Civilian Misidentified on Oct. 7 and Killed by Israeli Forces”
Is there anyway to get that fixed?
“why is the link just below this news item on the front page broken?”
Because it’s an archive.is link, and archive.is (and its sister sites) are on the fritz at the moment, as is often the case.
“Is there anyway to get that fixed?”
Well, there is — Antiwar.com could stop using that archiving service. But I’ve suggested that, and I think others have as well, without the suggestion being accepted. I’m not sure why.
Ok, thanks for the info.
Just for show. Netanyahu could care less about the hostages.