politico.com : ‘The hostages being killed changed everything’
Posted: Wed Sep 04, 2024 9:37 pm
‘The hostages being killed changed everything’
Read more here: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/na ... g-00177162
Gaza cease-fire negotiations aren’t progressing the way U.S. officials had hoped.
Despite optimism earlier this month that a deal was close, U.S. and Israeli officials now say they are increasingly pessimistic that a deal will soon be reached.
The deaths of six hostages in Gaza over the weekend have some officials worried that the progress negotiators made in recent weeks will be blunted in the coming days by what they forecast will be strong retaliation from Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU. They worry tensions between Israel and Hamas will only increase, potentially stalling negotiations.
“It does not look good,” one Israeli official briefed on the negotiations said. “We are still working at it, but the hostages being killed changed everything.”
Those fears, though expressed privately, stand in stark contrast to what U.S. officials telecasted last week.
After negotiators met in Cairo on Aug. 26, Biden officials said the talks were on track and that they were optimistic a deal would soon be reached. All that was left to work out were a few minor details, they said at the time.
But those small details have become major hurdles and they are proving to be much more difficult to overcome than some inside the administration initially anticipated.
The main sticking point between Hamas and Israel is the presence of Israeli troops along the Philadelphi Corridor — a small strip of demilitarized borderland that separates Gaza from Egypt.
Netanyahu wants at least some of his troops stationed there in order to prevent the militant group from using a purported network of tunnels there to smuggle weapons and fighters through the border of Egypt. The two sides are also still negotiating, along with Egypt, who will control the official border between Egypt and Gaza known as the Rafah crossing. The international negotiating group, comprised of representatives from Qatar, Egypt, Israel and the U.S., has previously discussed potentially bringing in a third party to operate the crossing.
The National Security Council declined to comment.
President JOE BIDEN has grown increasingly frustrated with Netanyahu — his vexation obvious over the weekend when he responded with a curt “no” to a reporter who had asked whether the Israeli prime minister was doing enough to close the deal.
Read more here: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/na ... g-00177162
Gaza cease-fire negotiations aren’t progressing the way U.S. officials had hoped.
Despite optimism earlier this month that a deal was close, U.S. and Israeli officials now say they are increasingly pessimistic that a deal will soon be reached.
The deaths of six hostages in Gaza over the weekend have some officials worried that the progress negotiators made in recent weeks will be blunted in the coming days by what they forecast will be strong retaliation from Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU. They worry tensions between Israel and Hamas will only increase, potentially stalling negotiations.
“It does not look good,” one Israeli official briefed on the negotiations said. “We are still working at it, but the hostages being killed changed everything.”
Those fears, though expressed privately, stand in stark contrast to what U.S. officials telecasted last week.
After negotiators met in Cairo on Aug. 26, Biden officials said the talks were on track and that they were optimistic a deal would soon be reached. All that was left to work out were a few minor details, they said at the time.
But those small details have become major hurdles and they are proving to be much more difficult to overcome than some inside the administration initially anticipated.
The main sticking point between Hamas and Israel is the presence of Israeli troops along the Philadelphi Corridor — a small strip of demilitarized borderland that separates Gaza from Egypt.
Netanyahu wants at least some of his troops stationed there in order to prevent the militant group from using a purported network of tunnels there to smuggle weapons and fighters through the border of Egypt. The two sides are also still negotiating, along with Egypt, who will control the official border between Egypt and Gaza known as the Rafah crossing. The international negotiating group, comprised of representatives from Qatar, Egypt, Israel and the U.S., has previously discussed potentially bringing in a third party to operate the crossing.
The National Security Council declined to comment.
President JOE BIDEN has grown increasingly frustrated with Netanyahu — his vexation obvious over the weekend when he responded with a curt “no” to a reporter who had asked whether the Israeli prime minister was doing enough to close the deal.