Ongoing negotiations — not yet concluded — could soon see a deal to exchange at least 50 of the prisoners Hamas is holding for an unconfirmed number of Palestinians held in Israeli jails, said two Egyptian sources with knowledge of the negotiations taking place between the Palestinians and Israeli authorities with Qatari, Egyptian and American involvement.
One of the two, a senior security source, described steps in the potential deal beginning with the fuel which was delivered to the strip on Wednesday and ending ultimately with a short pause of the Occupation forces’ onslaught on the Gaza Strip.
Both of the Egyptian sources who spoke to Mada Masr pointed to potential complications that could obstruct the negotiations’ conclusion. Some of the Palestinian factions have also voiced concerns about Israel’s willingness to finalize the deal, while reports in the Israeli press on Tuesday cast similar doubts on the preparedness of some of the Palestinians to agree to the terms given the status of the Occupation forces ground invasion.
The two sources speaking to Mada Masr described the ongoing negotiations. Qatar has been widely reported to be taking part in the negotiations, as mentioned by Qassam Brigades Spokesperson Abu Obaida on Monday, with the United States also heavily involved.
Egypt has also been directly involved and has hosted several indirect meetings between Hamas leaders and Israeli security officials, the senior Egyptian security source told Mada Masr.
“What took place in Cairo during the past days was a negotiation on the release of civilian hostages, specifically those under eighteen and the elderly in exchange for the release of Palestinian citizens in Israeli prisons,” said the second source, an Egyptian government source speaking to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity.
These meetings, the security source said, are part of wider communications Cairo has been undertaking to facilitate the deal which is designed to play out in three stages.
The first stage comprises facilitations for the entry of more humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip from Egypt, as well as the entry of a limited number of fuel trucks.
It was the prisoner deal negotiations that secured the entrance of a limited amount of fuel to the Gaza Strip on Wednesday for the first time since the start of the Occupation’s war on Gaza, the security source said, with Israeli restrictions allowing it to be used only by United Nation bodies and only for transporting aid.
The second stage of the deal, according to the source, should see a medical envoy provide urgent treatment to the severely wounded, either inside Gaza or across the border in Egyptian hospitals following their transportation.
Finally, the source concluded, a short-term ceasefire should be established.
The United Nations Security Council passed on Wednesday night a resolution for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors” in Gaza for “a sufficient number of days” to allow full, rapid, safe and unhindered access for UN agencies and partners. The United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee said on Thursday, however, that humanitarian leaders will not participate in the establishment of any “safe zones” in Gaza that is set up without the agreement of all the parties, and unless fundamental conditions are in place to ensure safety and other needs are met.
Though anticipating that a deal could be reached “very soon” and that both sides want it to happen, the security source said that there are still some points being ironed out around the number and profiles of Palestinians Hamas wants to be released, as well as the number the resistance factions are willing to return.
Hamas presented the Egyptian side with a list of about 2,000 names that it wants released in exchange for 40 non-military detainees the resistance faction has held since October 7, the source said.
Hamas has said it is considering the release of at least 50 prisoners. In the first direct official description of the deal, Qassam Brigades spokesperson Abu Obaida said on Monday that it could entail Hamas and other resistance factions releasing up to 70 Israeli women and children in exchange for the release of 200 Palestinian children and 75 women detained in Israeli prisons.
Similar numbers were described in the Washington Post on Thursday in coverage that cited an anonymous Arab diplomat as stating that Hamas has agreed to the deal in principle, while the Israeli side was still considering it. The report said a deal could entail Hamas releasing “at least 50” prisoners, though it was more vague on the proposed number of Palestinians to be released from Occupation prisons.
Abu Obaida said on Monday the deal could also see a five-day truce, while an anonymous official briefed on the negotiations told Reuters that three days are being talked about.
The Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, and other Palestinian factions in Gaza took around 240 prisoners in the unprecedented Tufan al-Aqsa operation at the beginning of October. Israeli authorities have also published lists of around 1,400 people reported killed in the operation.
Israeli Occupation forces have claimed that they intend to locate and recover the over 200 prisoners taken during the October 7 operation of the Qassam Brigades, Meanwhile, Israel has bombarded the more than 2 million people living in Gaza with daily airstrikes for over a month, escalating the attacks with a ground invasion into the Palestinian enclave launched in late October. 11,000 people in Gaza have been killed, and hundreds of thousands displaced so far. Hamas has returned four of the prisoners already and said that at least 60 are now dead or missing due to Israeli airstrikes.
But “Israel, and not just Netanyahu,” said the source, has become very strict in evaluating who will or will not be released from prison, “as was the case with the pre-October 7 negotiations for Hamas to release two Israeli soldiers, and the bodies of two more, in exchange for Israeli releasing a number of Hamas figures.”
“Israel has not yet been able to overcome” what the security source described as the “Shalit complex,” referring to events that took place between 2006 and 2011 when Hamas released Israeli Occupation soldier Gilad Shalit after seven years of negotiations mediated by Egypt. In exchange, over a thousand Palestinians were released from Israeli prisons in two stages, including Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
Now, Sinwar is being described as a potential obstacle to the conclusion of the deal. Sinwar was reported in the Israeli media on Thursday to present a potential block to the prisoner deal being concluded. Without citing its sources, Yedioth Ahronoth reported that Sinwar had personally pulled out of talks with the mediators. The newspaper also claimed that Hamas will leave the negotiations if the Occupation military continued to operate in Shifa Hospital, which it invaded Tuesday night. Sinwar stressed that the five-day truce must be upheld before the deal goes through, according to the report.
Other voices on the Palestinian side have also voiced uncertainty about the feasibility of the deal. Hamas’s biggest ally in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad accused Israel of not being interested in concluding the deal and that it is “tricking the mediators.” as the Islamic Jihad Deputy General Secretary Mohamed al-Hindi said on Tuesday. On the same day, the faction’s Secretary General Ziyad al-Nakhalah said the Islamic Jihad might keep its hostages “for better circumstances,” due to dissatisfaction with the negotiations and Israeli responses.
Likewise, in his Monday statement, Abu Obaida accused the Israeli side of stalling the negotiations and damaging the deal by continuing its relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which he said had already killed some of the prisoners. “The enemy is not only throwing away the lives of Palestinian civilians but also doesn’t even care about killing its captives,” Abu Obaida said in a voice recording. Hamas has said that over 60 of those who were taken prisoner are dead or missing due to Israel’s airstrikes.
Occupation forces invaded on Wednesday the Shifa Hospital, the largest medical facility in Gaza, where thousands of medical staff, patients and displaced people were taking shelter, after three days of siege and bombardment of its vicinity, and constant propaganda painting it as a Hamas headquarters where hostages were kept. US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby also claimed hours before the raid that the US had obtained information confirming the hospital is a Hamas base via various intelligence methods.
Medical staff, and displaced and wounded Palestinians were detained from the hospital, but no hostages were found.
The Egyptian government source told Mada Masr that, although the ground invasion was important for the domestic image of the Israeli Occupation government, “[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is now aware that he will not be able to free the hostages held by Hamas without going into negotiations.
Both Egyptian sources told Mada Masr separately that Cairo warned Washington repeatedly that going too far in supporting Israel would harm the US’s interests and image in the region, as well as hurt its allies, and that action must be taken toward three things: improving the humanitarian situation on the ground with Israeli consent, moving toward an initial temporary ceasefire followed by a permanent one, and considering the political proposals for the future.
According to both sources, Washington has not yet reached a final vision for the future of Gaza after the war or even of what will happen for the remainder of the war — which one source said could last six more weeks, while the other said four weeks.
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