After the death of 1,143 Israelis (those on October 7) and more than 46,500 Palestinians (they could be almost triple that number according to some reports), Israel and Hamas would be on the verge of signing something resembling peace. The still president of the United States, Joe Biden, has said it: an agreement that achieves a ceasefire in Gaza and guarantees the release of the hostages “is about to go forward.”
“We are on the verge of a proposal that I outlined in detail months ago finally coming to fruition.”
The outgoing president has been trying to close an agreement for months, but it is the first time he is so optimistic. Biden assures that his Administration, which has less than a week left, is working urgently to achieve it.
“We are on the verge of a proposal that I explained in detail months ago finally comes to fruition“he said in his latest speech on foreign policy. Biden spoke on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and on Monday with the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad al Thani.
They have to achieve it. If they don’t, there will be problems like we haven’t seen before.”
The president-elect, Donald Trump, has said the same thing in the last few hours. “We are very close to achieving it… They have to achieve it. If you don’t, there will be many problems, the likes of which you have not seen before.“, he assured during an interview with Newsmax.
Indirect conversations in the same building
This Monday in Doha, the Qatari emir discussed the status of the negotiations, of which he is a mediator, with a delegation from Hamas and another from Washington. After months of stagnation, the talks are at a crucial moment faced with the possibility of signing a real agreement.
A Palestinian official familiar with the negotiations told the BBC that, for the first time in the war, the Palestinian delegations Israel and Hamas are holding talks. According to this testimony, the parties maintained six hours of indirect communications in the same building on Monday.
Sources close to the negotiations speak of the existence of a final draft of the pact. Thus, in the coming days the signing of an “initial” truce agreement with Israel would be scheduled. Hamas sources have confirmed to Efe that they have given the mediators their response “without comments” on the draft.
We are close to an agreement that can be closed this week. “I’m not making a promise or a prediction.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters that progress had been made and that the agreement looked “much better than before.” An Israeli official has told Reuters that was possible reach an agreement in “hours, days or more.”
“We are close to an agreement that can be closed this week. I’m not making a promise or a prediction, but “It’s there for the taking and we’re going to work to make it happen,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told Bloomberg News.
What would the agreement consist of?
According to the source of Efe in Hamas, the pact would include a first phase in which the Palestinian group would free 34 Israeli hostages in exchange for a month and a half ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, and the release of some 1,000 Palestinian prisoners (including none of the members of the unit involved in the attack on October 7, 2023).
Ensures the BBC that Hamas has withdrawn its condition that Israeli troops leave the Strip. The British channel points out more details of the first phase of the agreement that would last 42 days.
Both parties would have agreed that Hamas would release three hostages on the first day of the agreement, after which Israel would begin to withdraw troops from populated areas. Seven days later, Hamas would release four more hostages, and Israel would allow those displaced from the south to return to the north, but only on foot along the coastal road.
To the cars, animal-drawn carts and trucks They would be allowed to cross through a pass adjacent to the Salah al-Din road, monitored by an X-ray machine operated by a Qatari-Egyptian technical security team.
The agreement would include provisions for Israeli forces to remain in the Philadelphia corridor and maintain an 800 meter controlled zone along the eastern and northern borders during the first phase. Negotiations for the second and third phases of the agreement would begin on the sixteenth day of the ceasefire.
The Israeli extreme right does not want an agreement
But within the Israeli cabinet, Netanyahu is fiercely opposed to a possible peace agreement. Ten members of the right, including some from the Likud, the prime minister’s party, have sent him a letter opposing a truce.
Israel claims that 94 of the hostages remain in Gazaof which 34 are presumed dead. In addition, there were four other Israelis kidnapped before the war, two of whom have died.
The new push comes after US President-elect Donald Trump threatens that “all hell will break loose” if a deal is not reached before his inauguration on January 20. He Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff It has also been present in Doha.
The White House national security advisor assures that the Biden Administration has been in contact with the Trump team to be united on the issue before the transition of power. “The pressure exerted towards the end of the mandate of President Biden has been considerable,” Sullivan said.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed 46,584 people in the Gaza Strip and injured 109,731. Other estimates suggest that the real number of victims is much higher. According to research from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, The deaths would be 64,260 until June 30, 202426,383 more than the 37,877 registered by the Palestinian authorities in that period.
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