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Israel and Hamas are nearing a deal for a Gaza ceasefire, although they have yet to agree on the positioning of Israeli troops inside the shattered Palestinian enclave, according to three people familiar with the negotiations.
They cautioned that a deal to halt the 21-month war could yet take weeks to conclude after international mediators adapted their initial proposal in a bid to close the remaining gaps between the two sides.
The original draft framework put forward by the US, Qatar and Egypt last week, which both warring parties tacitly accepted, called for a 60-day truce, the release of more than half the remaining 50 Israeli hostages, and the start of talks on a permanent end to the war.
Yet there are still major disagreements over the extent of the Israeli military’s withdrawal from Gaza during the proposed two-month truce, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Israel is demanding that its forces hold a wide swath of the enclave’s south bordering Egypt, which encompasses the razed city of Rafah up to the environs of the city of Khan Younis. The Israeli military is also expected to stay inside a 1km-wide buffer zone across the entirety of the Israel-Gaza frontier.
Another major hurdle is the extent of the guarantees provided to Hamas that the temporary truce will indeed lead to a full halt to the war, the group’s long-standing demand.
A new proposal floated by the mediators would see the release of all the remaining living Israeli hostages still held by Hamas in two phases: one at the very start of the 60 days, and one at the very end, contingent on agreement over an end to the war.
The bodies of a further nine deceased Israeli hostages would also be released during the initial truce, although one person with knowledge of the talks cautioned that the “numbers could still change”.
A second person familiar with the ongoing indirect talks taking place this week in Doha said the idea behind the reworked proposal is that the release “on Day 60 or 61” of all the remaining living Israeli hostages, a long-held Israeli objective, would act as both an incentive for Israel to end the war and an inducement to Hamas to agree the initial ceasefire.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has consistently refused to end the conflict until Hamas’s complete surrender and the release of all the remaining Israeli hostages.
On Thursday he described his “minimal conditions” for the end of the war as the disarming of Hamas, the elimination of its ability to govern and the Palestinian demilitarisation of the entire strip.
“If this can be achieved in negotiations — so much the better. If this will not be achieved in negotiations after 60 days, we will achieve it in other ways; by applying the might of our heroic army,” Netanyahu told reporters in Washington, as he concluded a multi-day visit with President Donald Trump and other senior US officials.
However, the original draft framework put forward by the mediators provided guarantees to extend the initial truce should additional time be needed to reach a permanent ceasefire.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio appeared to support the Israeli position on Thursday, blaming Hamas for the “sticking point” in the talks and rejecting what he described as the group’s demand for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
This would, he added, “allow them to go back to being Hamas. Obviously the Israelis are not going to agree to that,” Rubio added.
Earlier in the week Trump appeared bullish on the prospects of a breakthrough, saying he believed a deal was “very close”, although more time was required to finalise the details.
“We want to have a ceasefire, we want to have peace, we want to get the hostages back, and I think we’re close to doing it,” he said on Wednesday.
According to the three people familiar with the negotiations, many of the gaps between Israel and Hamas have been closed, including over the increase of much-needed humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave, the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released from Israeli prisons in exchange for the hostages, and some technical matters.
But US and Israeli officials counselled that the surest sign of a nearing breakthrough would be the arrival in Doha of Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy for peace missions who has been spearheading the talks alongside his Qatari and Egyptian counterparts.
“Witkoff isn’t even there yet [in Doha]. When he gets there then you know there is likely to be a deal,” said an Israeli official.
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