Blinken said the response was under review and that he would “discuss it with the Israeli government tomorrow.” “There is still a lot of work to be done, but we still believe that an agreement is possible, and indeed necessary.” He and other officials described the hostage agreement as a stepping stone toward broader American goals of reaching a permanent political settlement in the Middle East, including the establishment of a Palestinian state.
President Biden, who was briefed on Hamas' response at the White House before he made public remarks about a stalled bipartisan Senate bill to provide additional funding for Ukraine, Israel and other crises, commented only briefly on the hostage issue.
Biden said: “There is some movement, and there was a response from Hamas, but it seems to be a little exaggerated, and we are not sure where it is.”
The proposal, which was negotiated between the United States, Qatar and Egypt, with the participation of Israel, constitutes a broad framework that includes an initial six-week cessation of fighting and the release of all civilian hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. In return, Israel will release three Palestinian prisoners for every hostage.
This will mark the longest cessation of fighting since the war began four months ago. About 100 hostages are believed to be still alive, and Israeli officials say Hamas is holding at least 29 bodies. The “vast majority” of those killed were killed during an October 7 Hamas attack in southern Israel, according to an IDF spokesman. Washington hopes that the initial pause will be extended by six weeks, allowing a long-term settlement to be reached.
Israel agreed in principle to the framework, and Egypt handed over the interim terms to Hamas more than a week ago, according to people familiar with the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the sensitive issue.
In a brief public statement online, Hamas said it “dealt with the proposal in a positive spirit to ensure a comprehensive and complete ceasefire, end the aggression against our people,” guarantee humanitarian aid to Gaza, and end the Israeli “siege.” “Completing the prisoner exchange process.”
Both Blinken and Mohammed stressed that there is still work to be done to flesh out the framework, with Israel and Hamas completely opposed to many details, including which Palestinian prisoners will be eligible for release and whether Israeli forces will withdraw from populated areas during the truce period.
The main point of contention was Hamas' desire for any hostage deal to lead to a permanent ceasefire – something Netanyahu adamantly refused to take into account, vowing instead to continue fighting until “total victory” was achieved. The Israeli Prime Minister is under pressure from the families of the hostages, some of whom said that their release should be Israel's top priority. Other family members agreed with far-right officials in Netanyahu's government that there should be no agreement, and called for the fighting to continue unabated until Hamas is defeated and its leaders killed.
Qatar received Hamas' response just an hour before Blinken, who arrived here on Tuesday evening during his fifth visit to the Middle East since the war began, held an initial meeting with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani at the luxurious Lusail Palace, where the two briefly discussed it.
The full Hamas document was not presented to Blinken until his subsequent meeting with the prime minister, according to a senior US official who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the diplomatic talks.
American officials had been waiting for a response for days, telling reporters that “the ball is in Hamas’ court” and speculating that there were internal divisions within the armed group or that Israeli military gains deep in Gaza’s tunnels had prompted Hamas to flee. Other people familiar with the negotiations suggested that communications difficulties, including a complete power outage in Gaza since the war began and only intermittent availability of cell phones and radio communications, were largely to blame.
Mohammed said communications were “one of the challenges,” but so were “the negotiations themselves.” It's taken a while for us to get to a place where we're receiving that response.
The substance of Hamas' response remained shrouded in secrecy, but it appeared positive enough for American and Qatari diplomats to publicly raise hopes of a successful agreement.
While revealing the details would not “benefit the negotiations,” Mohammed said, “the general outlook for this appears to us, at least as we received it, to give more promising hopes and more prospects for achieving better results.” We hope to see it to fruition very soon.
Now that a response is in hand, Blinken said: “We will work as hard as we can to try to reach an agreement so that we can move forward with not only renewing but expanding the agreement on hostages and all the benefits that this agreement provides.” This would accomplish almost everything we do in diplomacy in general. A preliminary agreement last November led to the release of 105 hostages during a cessation of fighting for a week before it collapsed.
The negotiations are taking place as Israel continues its attacks in Gaza, focusing on the southern part of the enclave where nearly two million people, more than three-quarters of the population, are crowded into an ever-smaller plot of land to avoid land. Attacks launched by Israeli forces and continuing air strikes. More than 27,000 citizens have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Mohammed reiterated Qatar's call for a broad ceasefire, a position supported by the majority of the world's countries but rejected by Israel and the United States as a call for Hamas to regroup and rebuild. The suspension of funding for UNRWA, the UN agency that coordinates and delivers most aid to Gaza, was also criticized by the United States and several other countries following accusations that 12 of its 13,000 employees inside the Strip were involved. October 7 attacks on Israel.
“We cannot punish a humanitarian agency because of some accusations against some of its employees,” he said.
In each of his visits to the region, Blinken has sought to pressure Israel to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza and allow more humanitarian aid into the Strip — goals that have led to very little progress over the past few months amid mounting warnings of an impending famine from the Strip. International aid community.
When asked at the press conference whether he was too “nice” to be secretary of state and was not pressing Israel hard enough, Blinken, speaking softly, said: “I will let others talk about my character. All I can say is that most of the people who They hold the position that I am so honored to hold now. They don't get there by being nice all the time.
De Jong reported from Washington. Sarah Dadoush in Beirut, Shira Rubin in Tel Aviv, and Claire Parker in Cairo contributed to this report.
