Hamas may not cut a deal until the IDF is essentially staring its leadership in the eyes from “across the street” or whatever the equivalent might be when hiding inside a tunnel, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
No one knows exactly what is going on in Gaza Chief Yahya Sinwar’s head, and it is also unclear whether there may be differences of opinion between him and his brother Muhammad Sinwar on one side and Gaza military chief Muhammad Deif or Deif’s top deputy Marwan Issa, on the other side.
It is already clear that there are differences of opinion between these internal Gaza leaders on the ground who control the fate of the Israeli hostages and what is supposed to be Hamas’s supreme leadership outside of Gaza, who controls the group’s money and weapons resupply efforts.
Earlier on in the war, the Post understands it was hoped that by attacking northern Gaza first and southern Gaza with a delay, maybe the mere sight of the IDF’s dominance in northern Gaza would convince Hamas’s leadership to cut a deal to return all of the hostages – and this without the need to invade Khan Yunis.
This gambit only worked partially.
Hamas was brought down from its initial higher demands to be willing to return 81 Israeli hostages over the course of a week, with no guarantees about a permanent ceasefire.
But that was as far as that gambit went.
Would making it to Khan Yunis make a difference?
Next, there was hope that once the IDF invaded Khan Yunis and southern Gaza and got closer to where Hamas’s top leadership had allegedly fled to from northern Gaza, a more complete deal for all the hostages would be possible.
Top Israeli officials even started to speculate off the record about potentially granting Hamas’s top leadership free passage out of Gaza to Qatar or some third country in exchange for returning all of the hostages – a considerable change to the Israeli position that all of them would need to be killed before the war would end.
After a week or so in Khan Yunis, top Israeli officials hoped that if they spent the month taking apart most of Hamas’s battalions there, that Sinwar, Deif, and Issa would finally be ready for a deal.
And yet, Hamas has made it clear in recent days that it does not care what the IDF does to Khan Yunis and southern Gaza any more than it did to northern Gaza.
As long as the Hamas leadership hold the Israeli hostages and they hear Israeli officials switching their tune from immediately killing the terror group’s top officials to messages like “it may take months or years,” they feel they have the upper hand.
In addition, as long as the IDF does not know exactly where they are, they feel like they might as well allow time, IDF and Palestinian civilian casualties, and global pressure to wear down Israel’s will and its bargaining stance.
As long as they know that Israel – if and when it finds their likely underground hiding spot will still halt and offer them yet another deal before rushing in with special forces in what would likely be a bloodbath for the Israeli hostages, why should they agree to anything a moment earlier?
This means that if there can be any deal that both Hamas and Israel will agree to – something which top Israeli officials are not at all sure of – the Post has learned that it will likely not come before Israel is proverbially knocking on the (tunnel blast) door, and Hamas realizes that their own time to stall has run out.
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