US: Gaza deal 90% done, hostages-prisoners swap a sticking point

Ninety percent of the Gaza deal has been completed but wide gaps remain on two key sticking points – the hostage-prisoner swap and the Philadelphi Corridor, US National Communications Advisor John Kirby told reporters during a virtual briefing on Thursday.

“Much of the text has been agreed to, but the exchange of prisoners has not been agreed to, and that’s the heart of this deal, the exchange,” Kirby said.

He stood by an assessment from a senior Biden administration official the night before, who told reporters that “basically, 90% of this deal has been agreed on.”

Kirby confirmed that statement publicly, noting, “That’s how close we believe we are.”

However, he pushed back at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of that characterization during an interview on Fox & Friends, when they asked him about the US claim, citing The Jerusalem Post.

Netanyahu said, “There is a narrative out there that there is a deal out there. In fact, while we agreed in May and July and in August to an American proposal, Hamas has consistently said no to every one of them.

“Hamas just wants us out of Gaza so they can retake Gaza and do what they vowed to do,” carry out another October 7-style attack against Israel, Netanyahu said.

In Israel, the debate on the hostage deal has focused on Netanyahu’s insistence that Israel would not meet Hamas’s demand that the IDF withdraw its forces from the critical buffer zone known as the Philadelphi Corridor.

Netanyahu himself has given two press conferences on consecutive nights in Hebrew and English to underscore the importance of this buffer zone between Egypt and Gaza. He also stressed that point in his Fox interview.

For years, Hamas has smuggled weapons into Gaza through tunnels it had dug under that corridor. Netanyahu has insisted that the IDF must retain that area to prevent the terrorist group from resuming its smuggling operations there.

Proponents of the deal have accused Netanyahu of thwarting it, charging that a deal could have been reached if only he would agree to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor.

“The report that there is a deal out there [and] that’s the only thing holding it up... is a direct falsehood,” Netanyahu told Fox, as he stressed that Hamas was the obstacle to any deal.

In an unusual series of high-level interviews and briefings, US officials drew an almost diametrically opposite characterization of the events of the last week than the one that has been hotly debated in Israel.

Kirby said the sticking point has been the details around the exchange of hostages for Palestinian security prisoners and terrorists in Israeli jails.

Both he and the senior Biden administration official said talks over the hostage-prisoner swap had become even more complicated in the aftermath of the Hamas execution of six of those hostages last weekend, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23.

“Before the events of this weekend, we had been working together with Egypt and Qatar, particularly on the arrangements of the prisoner exchange and putting together a package by which you would basically have everything worked out,” the US official told reporters late Wednesday.

Then there were the executions over the weekend, “which has kind of changed the character of some of that discussion,” the official explained.

“It has brought a sense of urgency to the process, but it’s also called into question Hamas’s readiness to do a deal of any kind,” the official explained.

“There’s a list of hostages, and we all have it, and Hamas has had it, and all the parties have had it, and there are now fewer names on the list,” the official said. “It’s horrific,” particularly with Hamas “threatening to execute more hostages,” the official explained.

Such actions were a reminder that “we’re dealing with a terrorist group,” the official stated.

Nature of a prisoner exchange 

Kirby told reporters Thursday that Hamas has also put new terms on the table for the hostage-prisoner exchange, but did not specify what they were.

The senior Biden administration official said there were some 800 Palestinian security prisoners and terrorists, including those serving life sentences for killing civilians, who would be free during the first phase of the three-part deal that US President Joe Biden unveiled on May 31.

It was expected that some 18-32 hostages would be freed in the first phase. Out of the six killed, at least three and possibly four were expected to be part of that first release.

The official said that most of the talk in Doha earlier this week was on the issue of the exchange.

The deal has 18 total paragraphs, of which 14 have been completed, with three of those paragraphs dealing with the hostage-prisoner issue, the official said. And it can not move forward until the issue has been worked out, he explained.

Issues around Philadelpi

The official also spoke about the Philadelphi Corridor. He stressed that the original May 31 agreement did not mention the corridor. The deal stipulates that the IDF withdraw from all densely populated areas.

“And a dispute emerged,” the official said, over “whether the Philadelphi Corridor, which is effectively a road on the border of Gaza and Egypt, is a densely populated area.

“Israelis over the course of the last couple weeks, produced a proposal by which they would significantly reduce their presence on the corridor,” the official said, describing it as a “fairly significant reduction.”

The US official stressed that there were options to secure the border that did not involve an IDF presence along the Philadelphi.

“We are going to make certain that Israel’s security is of the primary interest in this deal. I have seen some Israeli ministers say this deal somehow would sacrifice Israel’s security. That is just fundamentally, totally untrue,” the official said.

“If anything, I would argue that not getting into this deal is more of a threat to Israel’s long-term security than actually concluding the deal,” the official stated.

“Ultimately, the final decision maker is Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar,” he said.

Kirby echoed that sentiment on Thursday stating, “Number one, the biggest obstacle to getting a ceasefire deal is Hamas.”

US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew pushed back at reports that the United States was considering scrapping the existing Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal and putting a new one on the table or that it would conspire some sort of a Plan B.

“We can’t begin working on a Plan B, because the minute you say that there’s going to be focus on a Plan B, Plan A becomes impossible,” he said during a public appearance at the International Institute for Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.

“I think this Plan A still has a very feasible path towards being accomplished,” he stated.

Washington “can’t skip over this plan quite that quickly, because we’re devoting most of our energy... from the president of the United States down through the entire foreign policy team, including myself,” to finalizing this deal, he said.•