Israel and the Hamas terrorist group may be closer to a cease-fire and hostage deal, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sending a high-level negotiating team to Qatar on Jan. 11.
Netanyahu recently met with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s designated Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, who spoke of significant progress in the talks. Witkoff said he hoped for an agreement before Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
Netanyahu, after conferring with his defense minister, the heads of the security establishment, and U.S. negotiators, dispatched a team including the heads of Mossad and Shin Bet, Israel’s foreign intelligence and counterintelligence agencies, and his foreign policy adviser, to Doha, Qatar’s capital, the prime minister’s office said in a social media post.
Under discussion is a phased cease-fire, with Netanyahu signaling that he is committed only to a first phase, a partial hostage release in exchange for a weekslong halt in fighting.
Hamas has insisted on a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu’s government has insisted on retaining the Philadelphi Corridor, along the Gaza–Egypt border, and the Netzarim Corridor, which cuts the Gaza Strip in two, as a necessary condition, in order to prevent arms smuggling and to impede Hamas’s movement throughout Gaza. Netanyahu has insisted on destroying Hamas’s ability to fight.
Trump has reiterated a stark warning that he had made before. In a news conference at Mar-a-Lago on Jan. 7, he warned, “All hell will break out” if Hamas hasn’t released the hostages, including seven Americans, three of whom are believed to be dead, by the time that he takes office.
“It will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone,” Trump said.
On Jan. 11, an Israeli official said some progress had been made in the talks, in which Israel and Hamas communicate indirectly through the mediating nations.
Netanyahu discussed with President Joe Biden on Jan. 12 ongoing efforts to reach a cease-fire deal and free the remaining hostages there, the White House said in a statement after the two leaders spoke by telephone.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan, speaking on CNN on Jan. 12, said the parties were “very, very close” to reaching a deal.
The war began when Hamas conducted a coordinated air, land, and sea attack on Israel’s border communities and military bases on Oct. 7, 2023. About 1,200 Israelis were killed, thousands wounded, and about 250 taken hostage. Of those, about 100 are still believed to be held, either living or dead.
In the ensuing war, about 45,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and Hamas fighters. Israel says at least half of those casualties were Hamas fighters and that many more were members of the fighters’ own families whom they were using as human shields. Israel also accused the health ministry of inflating the death tolls with the names of some who had died of natural causes.
