Negotiations between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group for a cease-fire and hostage exchange may be nearing a deal, according to sources on both sides.
“There will be an overwhelming majority for the deal that is currently on the table. It’s best not to talk about this,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee on Dec. 16.
Earlier that day, a senior Hamas official told a Saudi news outlet, “We are closer than ever to a prisoner exchange agreement and a ceasefire, provided [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu does not obstruct it.”
A working-level Israeli delegation, including representatives of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Mossad, and the Shin Bet counterintelligence agency, arrived in Doha, Qatar, on Dec. 16 to advance negotiations.
Katz also said Hamas has displayed greater flexibility on the issue of the IDF’s remaining in the Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors, removing one obstacle to the deal. The former runs along Gaza’s border with Egypt and the latter across the Central Gaza Strip from Israel to the Mediterranean.
“The other side understands that we aren’t going to end the war,” Katz said. “We’re holding discussions with many parties about the day after, but the condition is that Hamas [does] not control Gaza.”
The Saudi report said Hamas agrees that the fighting ends only gradually, based on a timetable set in advance and backed by guarantees from international players.
Netanyahu met with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming special envoy for hostage affairs, Adam Boehler, on the evening of Dec. 16 during Boehler’s visit to Israel, the prime minister’s office said.
Netanyahu said on Dec. 15 that he'd spoken with Trump the previous night about the issue. Trump said earlier there would be “hell to pay” in the Middle East if the hostages were not released by the time he took office.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, when he was in Turkey on Dec. 13 for talks with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan regarding Syria, said he also discussed the imperative of Hamas’s agreeing to a cease-fire deal.
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan, speaking at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem the same day, said, “Hamas’s posture at the negotiating table did adapt following the announcement of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.”
Sullivan had met with Netanyahu the previous day in Jerusalem in a meeting including top diplomatic and security officials from both sides.
Hamas had previously believed other forces would “come to their rescue, come to their aid,” Sullivan said.
“And when we got that cease-fire, it was clear that the Northern Front had been decoupled from Gaza,” he said.
From then on, he said, there has been “a different character to the negotiations.”
“The balance of power in the Middle East has changed significantly, and not in the way that Sinwar or Nasrallah or Iran had planned,” he said.
Sullivan referred to late Hamas military chief Yahya Sinwar, killed by the IDF on Oct. 16, and late Hezbollah terrorist group leader Hassan Nasrallah, who died in a targeted Israeli airstrike on Sept. 27. Iran has backed, armed, and subsidized Hamas and Hezbollah.
“We are now faced with a dramatically reshaped Middle East in which Israel is stronger, Iran is weaker, its proxies decimated, and a cease-fire that is new and will be lasting in Lebanon that ensures Israel’s security over the long term,” he said.
In more than a year of warfare following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that left 1,200 people dead and more than 250 kidnapped, Israel has eliminated most of the leadership of both groups.
Israel’s war in Gaza, with the explicit goals of eliminating Hamas and freeing about 100 remaining hostages, living or dead, still held by the terrorist group, has devastated the coastal enclave and killed more than 44,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities, which Hamas controls. The IDF says roughly half were members of Hamas.
Hezbollah’s supporting rocket fire in Israel’s north drove more than 60,000 residents from their homes. Israel’s ground offensive into Lebanon beginning at the end of September and stepped-up airstrikes significantly damaged Hezbollah’s ability to wage war.
Hezbollah, whose leaders had vowed not to stop until Israel pulled out of Gaza, entered a cease-fire agreement with Israel that began on Nov. 27.
Hezbollah’s defeat contributed, in turn, to Syria’s upheaval. Hezbollah had played a significant role in defending Syrian leader Bashar Assad’s regime during its more than decade-long civil war. Its defeat was among the factors emboldening rebels to begin their advances on the regime’s major cities, culminating with their entry into Damascus on Dec. 8, the same day Assad fled to Moscow.
