US urges Hamas to accept hostage deal and six-week pause to Gaza war

The White House called on Hamas to accept a hostage deal that would allow some of the remaining 134 hostages to be freed and put in place a six-week pause to the war.

“Israel has put a forward-leaning deal on the table,” US National Security Communication Advisor John Kirby. “They have made an offer here. And the onus is on Hamas to accept it.”

He added that he remained hopeful that the deal would be in place by the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramada that begins on March 10.

“The goal here is to get this done as soon as possible. And certainly, we'd like to see it done before Ramadan begins,” Kirby said.

Hamas and Egyptian mediators said on Monday they were pressing on with talks on securing a ceasefire in Gaza, despite Israel's decision not to send a delegation.

The ceasefire talks, which began on Sunday in Cairo, are billed as a final hurdle on the way to securing the first extended ceasefire of the five-month-old war, in time for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, expected to begin on Sunday.

Israel has declined to comment publicly on the Cairo talks. A source told Reuters it was staying away because Hamas had refused a request to list the hostages that are still alive, information that the terror group which controls Gaza said they will provide only once terms are agreed.

"Talks in Cairo continue for the second day, regardless of whether the occupation's delegation is present in Egypt," a Hamas official told Reuters.

Two Egyptian security sources said mediators were in touch with the Israelis, allowing negotiations to continue despite their absence.

A Palestinian source close to the talks said the discussions remained "uneasy," with Israel sticking to its demand for only a temporary truce to free hostages, while Hamas was seeking assurances that the war would not start up again.

Late on Monday, officials from Hamas, Egypt, and Qatar began a second round of talks for the day, a Hamas source said.

The proposal discussed

The proposal being discussed envisages a truce of about 40 days, during which militants would release around 40 of the more than 100 hostages they are still holding in return for some 400 Palestinian security prisoners and terrorists from Israeli jails.

Kirby told reporters that what was being discussed in this six-week deal was the release of “vulnerable, wounded, elderly female hostages.

During an initial release of hostages in November in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, “the list of hostages and a list of Palestinian prisoners … was part of the last deal and you can certainly imagine that that's a part of this deal, too. 

“Now, in this case, we're talking about more, more on more of both over a longer period of time” with several exchanges over six weeks.

“A list of names is part of that” conversation for a deal, he said. “We obviously want all the hostages returned to their families, and we recognize that it's likely that not all of them are still alive.”

As part of the emerging second deal, Israeli troops would pull back from some areas, more humanitarian aid would be allowed into Gaza, and residents would be permitted to return to abandoned homes.

But the deal does not appear to address directly a Hamas demand for a path to a permanent end to the war. Nor does it resolve the fate of more than half the remaining hostages - Israeli men excluded from both this and earlier agreements covering women, children, the elderly, and the wounded.

Israel says it will not end the war until Hamas is eradicated. Hamas says it will not free all its hostages without a deal that ends the war.

The Egyptian security sources said mediators were trying to bridge the gap with guarantees to Hamas on future peace talks, and to Israel on the safety of hostages.

A Palestinian official close to the negotiations disputed the US contention that Israel had already agreed to the deal and Hamas was holding it up, saying this appeared aimed at deflecting blame from Israel should the talks collapse.

The war erupted after Hamas fighters invaded Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and abducting 253 hostages

Since then, the IDF entered Gaza to destroy Hamas and pounded it from the sky and the ground. Hamas has assured that over 30,000 people have been killed and most of the population has been made homeless. Israel has said that at least 11,000 of the fatalities are combatants.

A Ramadan truce could head off a threatened Israeli military campaign in Rafah, the last town on the southern edge of Gaza where Hamas battalions are active, where more than half the enclave's population are now sheltering.

The US also hopes that a Gaza truce would help ensure a diplomatic resolution to the cross-border violence between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

US Special Envoy Amos Hochstein said on Monday that a truce in Gaza would not necessarily bring an automatic end to hostilities across Lebanon's southern border and he warned about the risks of an escalation of the conflict.

"Escalation of violence is in no one's interest, and there is no such thing as a limited war," he told reporters after meeting Lebanon's parliament speaker Nabih Berri, who is close to Hezbollah.

Hochstein said friction on the border had increased in recent weeks.

"A temporary ceasefire is not enough. A limited war is not containable," he said.

Lebanon deputy parliament speaker Elias Bou Saab told Reuters he believed the timing of Hochstein's visit signaled progress in efforts over a Gaza truce.

Hezbollah has publicly indicated that it would halt its attacks on Israel from Lebanon when the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip stops unless Israel kept shelling Lebanon.

But Hochstein said a Gaza truce would not automatically trigger calm in southern Lebanon and said he was "hopeful" for a diplomatic solution to the conflict across that border.

"It does not necessarily happen that when you have a ceasefire in Gaza, it just automatically extends" to Lebanon, he said.