Hamas rejects US ‘bridging’ offer as Blinken lands in Israel to advance hostage deal

Hamas rejected America’s “bridging proposal” to help finalize a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Israel Sunday night amid a major diplomatic blitz by the Biden administration to finalize an agreement this week.

The “bridging proposal” placed new conditions on the exchange of hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel, Hamas said as it referred to Palestinian security prisoners and terrorists that would be released in the deal. Other agreements previously arrived at have been retracted, it explained.

The US proposal essentially corresponds to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of a permanent ceasefire and a refusal to allow for the IDF to fully withdraw from Gaza, Hamas said.

The terror group spoke up after Netanyahu’s office released a statement that left no room for doubt as to where Netanyahu stood on the issue of a permanent ceasefire, which has been a key Hamas demand.

The Prime Minster’s Office stressed that Israel has not given up on one of its most fundamental demands, that it must be allowed to continue to battle Hamas in Gaza until it ousts the terror group from the enclave, a goal it has yet to complete ten months into the war.

Hamas has insisted that the deal must include an Israeli agreement for a permanent ceasefire.

The US has hoped to get the deal out the door with an agreement from both sides, that the issue of a permanent ceasefire would be negotiated during phase one of the deal.

That phase would allow some 18–33 hostages to be freed during a six-week period.

PMO says Hamas retracts deans

The Prime Minister’s Office said Sunday that Hamas had retracted that demand. For months there were those that claimed “Hamas would never agree to give in on ending the war as a condition for a deal, and proposed giving in to Hamas’s demand.

“They were wrong then – and they are also wrong today. The Prime Minister has strongly insisted on this fundamental demand, which is vital to achieving the goals of the war, and Hamas changed its position,” the Prime Minister’s Office stated.

It also charged that “There are serial leakers who are harming the ability to advance a deal.”In particular, the Prime Minister’s Office stressed that Israel wants to hold onto the Philadelphi and Netzarim Corridors.

“Even today, the Prime Minister insists that we remain in the Philadelphi Corridor to prevent the [Hamas] terrorists from re-arming,” Netanyahu’s office stated.

It spoke of the importance of ensuring that the maximal number of live hostages would return to Israel in the first phase of the three-phase deal US President Joe Biden unveiled on May 31.

“The Prime Minister will continue to work to promote a deal that will maximize the number of live hostages [to be returned] and that will enable the achievement of all the war’s goals,” Netanyahu’s office stressed.

The Prime Minister’s Office issued the statement after a weekend in which the United States and Israel had expressed optimism that the final stage of the hostage talks would be held in Cairo on Wednesday.

Netanyahu spoke Sunday with the team that will represent Israel at those Cairo talks, with KAN reporting that the mandate he gave the negotiators was a narrow one.

Professional-level Israeli teams were in Doha and Cairo on Sunday to continue talks for the release of the remaining 115 hostages.

Egypt and Qatar, with the help of the United States, have been the main mediators for the indirect talks between Israel and Hamas, since the terror group led an invasion of Southern Israel on October 7 that sparked the Gaza war.CIA Director William Burns held two days of negotiations in Doha ending Friday, with the participation of a high-level Israeli delegation led by Mossad Chief David Barnea aimed at bridging the gaps between Israel and Hamas over the hostage deal.

Erasing the gaps

During those talks, which did not directly include Hamas, the United States put what it referred to as a “bridging proposal,” which it said erased the gaps between Israel and Hamas with regard to the implementation of the May 31 proposal.

The Prime Minister’s Office statement, however, reflected an Israeli position that did not seem to have differed much from its stance before the Doha talks and after.

Among the sticking points has been Israel insisting that it must continue to hold a critical buffer zone area between Gaza and Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Corridor, as well as another security line in central Gaza knows the Netzarim Corridor.

The Hostage and Missing Families Forum accused Netanyahu of dragging his feet on a deal, a move that comes at the expense of the lives of the remaining hostages in Gaza.

It’s presumed that out of the 115 remaining there, 76 are presumed to be alive.

The forum recalled that the maximal number of live hostages had been released during the first hostage deal in November, when 105 were freed, to underscore the point that an agreement was the best method to bring the hostages home.

“We would like to remind the Prime Minister that the absolute majority of the hostages were released in that [November] deal,” the forum stated, adding that since then the government has failed to close a second deal.

“The 115 hostages are waiting for their country to bring them home. We will not allow another failure. Until the last of the hostages returns home, one can say that the State of Israel and its leader have not done everything in their power to return them,” it said.

Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan accused Netanyahu of not wanting to achieve an agreement in an interview to Al Jazeera.

There was an agreement, which Israel proposed and which Hamas accepted, and then Israel introduced new demands into the proposal.

Hamdan said that the agreement it supported already in July was the one put forward by Biden on May 31 and backed by the UN Security Council.

Israel’s response to Hamas’s acceptance of the deal was to assassinate its leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, he said.

Israel has not taken responsibility for that killing, but it is widely presumed to be behind Haniyeh’s assassination.

Israel had already said it would withdraw from Netzarim and Philadelphi and now it doesn’t want to, he said.

Hamas, Hamdan said, wants a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal of the Israeli army from Gaza.

Israel wants the right to attack Gaza, even if there is a “prisoner exchange” and that is unacceptable, Hamdan said.

“We want to push them out of Gaza in order to secure the lives of the Palestinians, and not give the Israelis the right to attack whenever they want,” he stressed.

Netanyahu, in turn, accused Hamas of refusing to accept the deal as he called for strong pressure to be leveled against it.

“The pressure needs to be directed at Hamas and [its leader Yahya] Sinwar, not the Government of Israel,” Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly government meeting in Jerusalem on Sunday as he stressed his commitment to freeing the hostages.

“This is a national mission of the highest order,” Netanyahu told his government.

“We are holding very complex negotiations in which the other side is a murderous terrorist organization that is unbridled and obstinate,” he said.

Netanyahu defended himself against charges that he has put obstacles in the way of the deal, by standing on some principled points as he explained that it was important not to cave to every Hamas demand.

Israel is “conducting negotiations and not a scenario in which we just give and give.

“There are things we can be flexible on and there are things that we cannot be flexible on, which we will insist on. We know how to distinguish between the two very well,” he said.

“Alongside the major efforts we are making to return our hostages, we stand on the principles that we have determined, which are vital for the security of Israel,” he said.

Israel has maintained its adherence to the proposal unveiled in Washington, he said, adding that the stumbling block has been Hamas.

“Up until now, Hamas has been completely obstinate. It did not even send a representative to the talks in Doha,” Netanyahu said, adding that “strong military and diplomatic pressure is the way to secure the release of our hostages.”