JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) -Israelis and Palestinians are signalling new efforts to forge a ceasefire deal, their first in a year, to pause the fighting in Gaza and return to Israel some of the hostages still held in the Palestinian enclave.
The guarded optimism emerges as U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan holds talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel on Thursday before heading to Egypt and Qatar, co-mediators with the U.S. on a deal.
A Western diplomat in the region said a deal was taking shape but it was likely to be limited in scope, involving the release of only a handful of hostages and a short pause in hostilities.
Such a truce would be only the second since the start of the war in October 2023. It would also enable the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency head David Barnea met Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Doha on Wednesday to discuss a ceasefire and hostage release deal, a source briefed on the meeting said.
Israel Defence Minister Israel Katz told his U.S. counterpart Lloyd Austin in a phone call on Wednesday there was now a chance for a deal that would allow the return of all the hostages, including U.S. citizens, Katz’s office said.
Anything more than a limited truce remains unlikely so long as both sides stick to demands that have hampered numerous rounds of failed negotiations.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas wants an end to the war before all hostages are freed, while Israel says the war will not end until Hamas no longer rules Gaza or constitutes a threat to Israelis.
The war began after Hamas gunmen stormed into Israeli communities in October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages back to the enclave, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, Israel’s military has levelled swathes of Gaza, killing nearly 45,000 Palestinians, driving nearly all its 2.3 million people from their homes and giving rise to deadly hunger and disease, according to Palestinian health authorities.
‘HELL TO PAY’
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has demanded Hamas release the hostages held in Gaza before he takes over from Biden on Jan. 20. Otherwise, Trump has said, there will be “hell to pay”.
Trump’s designated hostage envoy Adam Boehler has said he too is involved, having spoken already to Biden and to Netanyahu. Some 100 hostages remain in Gaza, seven of them U.S. citizens.
Boehler told Israel’s Channel 13 news last week: “I would appeal to those people that have taken hostages: Make your best deal now. Make it now because every day that passes, it is going to get harder and harder and more Hamas lives will be lost.”
Although Biden and Trump are working separately, their efforts overlap and both stand to gain from a deal. A U.S. official said Trump’s public statements about the need for a swift ceasefire “have not been harmful”.
The official said the priority is to get the hostages home, whether it is at the end of the Biden term or the start of the Trump term.
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s designated Middle East envoy, met separately in late November with Netanyahu and Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said a source briefed on the talks.
TIMING APT FOR NETANYAHU
The timing for a deal may never have been better for Netanyahu.
The prime minister told reporters on Monday that Hamas’ increasing isolation following the collapse of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s rule opened the door to a possible hostage deal even if it was too early to claim success.
The public optimism of Israeli leaders over the past week has matched the general tone in internal discussions behind closed doors, according to an Israeli official.
For Netanyahu, concessions would be far easier now with Israel having reestablished its reputation as the most powerful Middle East force and its Iran-backed enemies in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria now posing less of a threat.
Netanyahu’s once-fragile coalition has been strengthened by the addition of Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and his more centrist faction. Netanyahu, having achieved a ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon, can complete the picture with the return of the hostages.
Over the past year, some far-right ministers in his cabinet had voiced objections, even threatening to bring down the government, should the war in Gaza end. But with Israel’s enemies weakened and his coalition strengthened, Netanyahu is far less vulnerable politically.
Saar said on Monday that Israel was now more optimistic about a possible hostage deal amid reports Hamas had asked other Gaza factions to help it compile a list of Israeli and foreign hostages in their custody, whether dead or alive.
A Palestinian official close to the talks and familiar with the positions of all the parties involved described what he called “a fever of negotiations” with ideas emerging on all sides, including among mediators in Egypt and Qatar.
Trump’s involvement had given the talks a boost, the Palestinian official said. Hamas was willing to show some flexibility should there be guarantees Israel would not resume the fighting, he said.
(Reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo; Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Andrew Mills and Humeyra Pamuk; Writing by Howard Goller; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Angus MacSwan)
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