Reports last week that Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer replaced Mossad Director David Barnea to run the hostage talks with Hamas were a misnomer.
Barnea is still running that process to ensure the receipt of each hostage from Hamas as part of Phase I of the January 19 – March 1 deal.
However, regarding negotiations for Phases II and III of the deal for returning the remaining around 80 mixed live and deceased hostages, the Jerusalem Post has learned that Dermer has not actually replaced the Mossad chief because there are no negotiations taking place.
The negotiations team sent to Doha this week went several days later than it was supposed to have gone under the hostage deal, and it has been made clear that the team was only sent under pressure by US President Donald Trump and has no mandate. The security cabinet is not even meeting to set negotiating positions until tomorrow night.
Rather, the current negotiations and the many complaints against Hamas for “surprising” violations of hostages’ health or dishonoring them with staged appearances (as if anyone thought that a murderous radical sect like Hamas had been treating them well in the Gazan tunnels) are all part of a smokescreen to lead to the negotiations falling apart before they move into Phase II.
If only two weeks ago, many were talking about Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich leaving the government to join Otzma Yehudit party leader Itamar Ben Gvir in protest over ending the war, perceptions have shifted that Smotrich is going nowhere, and the chances of Ben Gvir returning, since the IDF will not fully withdraw from Gaza, are becoming much larger.
Many ask if the hostage deal will continue
The biggest question that many observers are asking themselves now are: will Israel even get back the last 11 hostages due on March 1, and will Israel even get back some of the hostages due on February 22 if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to send clear and repeated signals that there will be no Phase II.
Put differently, if Hamas knows that the IDF will not withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor and from a 700-1,100 meter Gaza perimeter, what incentive does it have to keep sending back Israeli hostages, even those that are part of the end of Phase I of the deal.
Of course, they are getting Palestinian security prisoners back for each hostage. But near the end of the deal, the value for them of such prisoners becomes smaller, and the value of each hostage, their only “life insurance plan” and leverage to try to get the |IDF to complete a Gaza withdrawal, becomes far larger.
The closer we get to March 1 with not even having serious talks about how many hostages will be released per week for how many Palestinian security prisoners, the harder it becomes practically for such continued exchanges to even be feasible.
Also, if there were expected to be talks starting on February 3 about the “Day After” in Gaza, the pushing of Trump’s new ideas about transferring the Gaza population have all but shut down such talks. Of course, if lightning strikes and magically the Gaza population decide to leave and magically other Arab countries agree to take them in, virtually all of the issues will be solved (though unclear what would happen to the hostages.)
But if this magic does not happen, it means that each day Hamas’s political control in Gaza is growing and it is becoming more potentially difficult to inject new parties into Gaza to displace them politically.
Unclear what’s next
It is possible that Netanyahu really does intend to return to war in Gaza or a mini-war of smaller penetrations into specific parts of Gaza with smaller groups of forces – not so different from how the West Bank looks now.
It is also possible that Netanyahu will not send the IDF back into Gaza for now to penetrate anywhere, but will create an indefinite limbo in which some IDF forces remain at the Philadelphi Corridor and the Gaza perimeter.
On one hand, this would allow Hamas to exert control over 90% plus of Gaza,
On the other hand, they would have to put up with Israel infringing on their “sovereignty” in ways that did not happen before October 7.
Another possibility is that Netanyahu will threaten to continue mini penetrations and airstrikes unless Hamas keeps providing Israel with around three hostages every week.
Hamas might play such a game a little bit, but after a few months it would run out of hostages, so it is unlikely that it would keep playing such a game for all that long.
Yet another possibility is that the Saudis offer Israel normalization in exchange for an end to the war and full Gaza withdrawal, but reduce their price regarding a Palestinian state, enough that Netanyahu is willing to take the deal.
Nothing the Saudis have said has indicated they would make such dramatic concessions, but no one expected the UAE to normalize without any permanent concession toward the Palestinian either – and they did.
This certainly is part of the back story for Netanyahu to Trump’s pushing for transferring the Gazan population – an even more extreme option to try to get the Saudis to make concessions.
Either way, having Barnea and the Mossad dig into negotiations over Phases II and III of the hostage deal is not in Netanyahu’s interest as long as he is not in favor of extending the deal beyond March 1.
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