Hamas accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of introducing new demands into the three-phased hostage deal that has been on the table since May 31.
“Netanyahu has once again returned to the strategy of procrastination, delay, and evasion from reaching an agreement by setting new conditions and demands,” Hamas said in a statement it posted on its website on Monday.
It spoke up one day after CIA Director William Burns held a high-level round of negotiations in Rome with Mossad Chief David Barnea, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Thani, and Egyptian Intelligence Chief Abbas Kamel.
Barnea had presented to the negotiators a list of clarifications to the May 31 proposal, which included a number of points Netanyahu had raised as his red lines.
These were the importance of a continued IDF presence at the critical buffer zone at the Gaza-Egypt border known as the Philadelphia Corridor and an insistence that Palestinian terrorists must not be able to return to northern Gaza.
Media outlets have also reported that Israel wants to be able to pre-approve the list of hostages that would be freed in the first phase of the deal, which is expected to last for six weeks, in exchange for the Israeli release from its jails of security prisoners and terrorists.
During those 42 days, there would be a lull in the war. On day 16, the two sides are expected to begin talks on the possibility of a permanent ceasefire deal.
In case it falls apart
The original proposal would allow Israel to resume fighting should those talks fail, and the release of the remainder of the live hostages in phase 2 would not take place until there was an agreement on the issue of a ceasefire.
Hamas said that it “listened to the mediators about what happened recently in the Rome meeting regarding the ceasefire negotiations and prisoner exchange.”
It said that it was clear Netanyahu had set “new conditions and demands, in which he backed down from what the mediators conveyed as part of the May 31 proposal.
Hamas noted that Israel authored the proposal, which was unveiled by US President Joe Biden on May 31 and then endorsed by the UN Security Council.
Security officials have said that Netanyahu could be more flexible and that the IDF could even temporarily withdraw from Gaza during the six weeks that make up phase one of the deal. Relatives of the hostages have called on Netanyahu to make a deal now.
Netanyahu has insisted that he has not made any changes to the framework of the May 31 proposal and that his principled points fall within the framework of the deal.
He had waited to send a team to Rome until after he had met with Biden at the White House last week to make sure that there was no daylight between Washington and Jerusalem.
US National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby told reporters Monday that the talks Netanyahu and his team held with US officials last week were “very constructive” and “certainly nothing that discouraged us in terms of trying to close the remaining gaps” with “respect to the ceasefire deal.”
The US still believes that those gaps can be eliminated but to do so is “going to take compromises” and “leadership,” Kirby said.
Security officials and representatives of families of the hostages have accused Netanyahu of introducing hardships
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