A proposal to free some of the remaining 130 or so Israeli hostages has stalled because different groups of Hamas leaders cannot agree on whether to accept a proposal that stops short of fully ending the war, which some have said is a core demand in any deal.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday:
Divisions between the top leaders of Hamas are preventing the militant group from signing off on a U.S.-backed proposal to stop the fighting in Gaza and free more hostages, according to officials familiar with the negotiations.
In a reversal of the group’s usual dynamics, Hamas’s top leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, and others, weary after months of war, say they are ready to accept the proposal for an initial six-week pause in fighting, the officials said. The organization’s exiled political leaders, though, are demanding more concessions and want to negotiate a permanent cease-fire, they said.
The cracks in Hamas have emerged as divisions within Israel over the price to be paid for a hostage deal have become more acute. On Saturday night, protesters in Tel Aviv demanding that the government accept a deal, even on unfavorable terms, blocked Tel Aviv streets.
Yossi Cohen, the former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, told Israel’s Army Radio that Israel should be prepared for a once-off deal for all of the hostages that could involve a “heavy price.” But that, too, depends on Hamas’s assent.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to begin a Middle East trip on Sunday that will start in Saudi Arabia and include Israel. The Biden administration is working with Egypt and Qatar to media between Israel and Hamas, while pressuring Israel to wind down the war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel will not give up on its goal of eliminating Hamas as a military threat and as a governing entity in Gaza. Hamas is already reportedly re-emerging in areas of Gaza that Israeli troops have left.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the 2021 e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now updated with a new foreword. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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