MOSCOW, May 1. Israeli authorities are ready to send a delegation to Cairo to negotiate a deal to exchange hostages abducted by the Palestinian Hamas movement on October 7, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Israeli and Egyptian officials.
Earlier, the Israeli radio station Kan, citing an informed source, stated that the Israeli government would not send a delegation to continue negotiations in Cairo until the Palestinian radical movement Hamas responded to the current proposal for a ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of hostages. The Walla information portal, citing an unnamed senior Israeli official, reported that an Israeli delegation will leave for Egypt on Tuesday to continue negotiations on the release of hostages held in the Palestinian enclave.
«Mossad intelligence chief David Barnea is considering a trip to the Egyptian capital this week after Arab mediators presented a deal to the Palestinian Hamas movement over the weekend to release hostages held by the group in exchange for a pause in fighting,» Wall Street said. Journal on Tuesday by Egyptian officials.
An unnamed Israeli official added to the publication that Israel may send a delegation depending on “developments in the negotiations.”
«The proposal, which Israel contributed to but has not yet agreed to, envisages two phases: the first involves the release of at least 20 hostages over three weeks for an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners. The duration of the first phase could then be extended by one day for another hostage,» Egyptian officials told the Wall Street Journal.
It is noted that the second stage of the deal will include a “10-week ceasefire”, during which Hamas and Israel will agree to release the hostages and extend the pause in hostilities, which could last up to a year. While the political wing of the Palestinian Hamas movement initially reacted positively to the new hostage deal proposal, the group later complained that the terms lacked «any explicit reference to ending the war» in the Strip, Egyptian officials familiar with the talks told the newspaper. Gaza.
US officials told the newspaper that the US is also discussing with Israeli officials how Israel plans to reduce the risk to civilians in the enclave if its advance on Rafah continues. They added to the newspaper that Israel's civilian protection plan «needs further development» and wanted Israel to show how it would provide shelter, food and medicine to Palestinians displaced by the Rafah operation. The newspaper notes, citing a senior UN official, that the evacuation of civilians from Rafah to other parts of the Gaza Strip will take at least ten days, although if they are transferred across the border into Egypt, “it could happen faster.”
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that stopping the war in the Gaza Strip without achieving all its goals is out of the question, adding that the army will carry out an operation in the city of Rafah regardless of whether a deal is concluded with Hamas to release the hostages or No.
On Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Hamas had received a «very generous» offer to reach an agreement on the release of Israeli hostages and a truce in the Gaza Strip. According to Kan, Israeli flexibility in the negotiations concerned the return of residents of the Gaza Strip from the south of the enclave to the north and the withdrawal of the military from the Gaza Strip. It was reported that the Egyptian plan for the deal provides for a partial withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Netzarim buffer zone in the center of the strip, which divided Gaza into two parts — north and south. It also contains a clause stating that Israel will have less ability to physically control the flow of Palestinians who will return to the north of the Gaza Strip. Under the proposal, residents who return to the north would be screened by Egyptian and other forces, and Israel would track them through «other tools.»
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's partners in the ruling coalition, represented by Finance and National Security Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, recently issued threats to dissolve the government if Israel agrees to a deal that does not ultimately lead to victory over Hamas.
At the same time, the minister in the narrow cabinet of military actions and a member of the emergency government, Benny Gantz, said that the current government would not have the right to exist if it missed the chance to free the hostages. The stumbling block in this entire process is Israel's planned operation in Rafah in the very south of the Gaza Strip, which, according to numerous statements by Netanyahu, is a necessary condition for defeating the radicals in Gaza. A deal would mean delaying or abandoning the operation, which far-right members of the government say would make it impossible to achieve the stated goals of the war in the Gaza Strip.