Israel rejects Qatari plan to free hostages in exchange for exiling Hamas leaders

The Israeli security cabinet leading the war in the Gaza Strip has rejected the proposal by Qatar, which acts as a mediator in the conflict, to release all the hostages captured in Israel on October 7, in exchange for the cessation of the hostilities and the departure into exile of the leaders of Hamas, the Islamist movement that has controlled the Strip for 17 years. The ministers and senior military and intelligence officials who met on Wednesday night with the head of the Government, Benjamin Netanyahu, ruled out Qatar's plan, for imposing the “unacceptable condition” of withdrawing troops and ending the fighting. , as reported this Thursday by the Hebrew press.

The director of Mossad (foreign espionage), David Barnea, presented the proposal he had received from Doha, an initiative behind which Israeli political analysts believe they see pressure from the president of the United States, Joe Biden, who sent to the Qatari capital his security advisor for the Middle East, Brett McGurk, negotiator in the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners that took place between November and December. The former Minister of Defense and current member of the security cabinet, former general Benny Gantz, has recalled “that the most urgent thing is the return of the hostages, and it has priority over any military operation in the war.”

A delegation of relatives of the 136 kidnapped in Gaza, dozens of whom may have been killed or injured, met this week with Qatari authorities to urge new mediation. The rejected proposal provided for the release “in several phases” of the hostages, accompanied by the complete Israeli withdrawal from the Strip and the departure into exile of the Hamas leaders in the enclave, among them, the political leader, Yahia Sinwar, and the military chief, Mohamed Deif. The security cabinet has flatly excluded a cessation of hostilities until the Armed Forces achieve all their objectives, in particular the rescue of the kidnapped and the eradication of the Hamas command structure.

The Hebrew press also reveals that Qatar has exercised its mediation through the top leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniye, who has lived in Doha for years, without coordinating with Sinwar. The Gazan leader, considered the mastermind of the offensive in which 1,200 Israelis died three months ago, does not seem willing to accept his departure into exile or lose control over the organization inside Gaza. Haniye warned Tuesday that Israel will not secure the release of the hostages until it releases thousands of Palestinian prisoners convicted of “security crimes” by Israeli courts.

CIA Director William Burns also remains in contact with Qatari authorities mediating the release of the hostages in Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel has established another negotiating center in Cairo for the ransom of the kidnapped. In the coming days, the Israeli army is expected to authorize the entry of 400 trucks a day with humanitarian aid into the Strip, twice as many as currently, through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. In his recent visit to Tel Aviv, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken received guarantees of an increase in international aid for the Gazan civilian population. In Egypt, the last leg of his tour of the Middle East, Blinken has insisted that Israel must allow civilians displaced by the war to return to their homes in the Strip “as soon as conditions allow.”

A few hours before the start of the UN International Court of Justice hearing in The Hague, in which South Africa accuses Israel of having violated the convention on genocide in the Strip, Netanyahu stated that the army “has no intention of occupy Gaza permanently or banish its civilian population.” The prime minister has thus come out against statements by radical members of his government who have advocated the reinstatement of Jewish settler settlements and the departure of the Palestinian population from the enclave. “We are doing everything possible to minimize [la cifra] of civilian victims,” he emphasized in an official statement.

Footprints of hostages in a tunnel

The chief spokesman of the Armed Forces, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, assured on Wednesday night that the troops had located a tunnel in the Khan Yunis area (southern of the Strip) in which several hostages had been held captive. “The release of the hostages requires our best efforts. We have carried out operations to rescue them that we have not informed about and others we have suspended at the last moment,” Hagari revealed. Relatives of kidnapped people gathered with loudspeakers at the border fence between Israel and Gaza to shout out their immediate release, according to the Efe agency.

The army continues its offensive in central and southern Gaza, territories subjected to intense bombardment. At noon on Thursday, the enclave's Ministry of Health had counted 112 deaths in its daily report of fatal casualties, which rose to nearly 23,500 since the start of the war. Only three of the 21 humanitarian aid shipments scheduled by the United Nations in northern Gaza have been completed since the beginning of 2024, either because of Israeli security controls or because many roads are impassable. Military spokesmen assured that they are fighting “underground and on the surface.” The Armed Forces report that they have found 300 tunnel openings and demolished dozens of underground passages.

While tension between Israel and Hezbollah appears to be reducing in recent hours on the Lebanese border, American mediator Amos Hochstein traveled to Beirut this Thursday to try to contain clashes between the Shiite militia and the Israeli army. In 2022, Hochstein already mediated the pact with which Lebanon and Israel established the demarcation of their maritime border to allow the exploitation of gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean.

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