Israeli ministers were due to meet Thursday night to discuss Hamas’s response to a new proposal for a Gaza ceasefire and the release of hostages, as mediators sought to revive dormant ceasefire talks after nearly nine months of war.
On Wednesday, the Israeli government said in a statement that it was examining Hamas’s response to the latest proposal and would send its own response to mediators. The talks are based on a three-phase framework agreement published by President Biden in late May and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council.
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday night that there were still major differences between the sides, but that Hamas’s response offered an opportunity to move the talks forward. The official declined to provide further details.
For months, Israel and Hamas, along with Qatar, Egypt and the United States, have been holding indirect talks on the potential ceasefire, which called for a three-phase truce in Gaza and the release of the remaining 120 hostages, living and dead, still held there. However, major gaps remained on key issues and the talks have been largely at a standstill since June.
The main stumbling blocks revolve around a fundamental disagreement: Hamas wants guarantees that the deal will lead to an end to the war and a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops, while Israel has vowed to continue fighting until Hamas is destroyed and also seeks control over security in Gaza after the war.
In Israel, some influential members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government have already spoken out against a possible deal with Hamas.
“Now is not the time to stop, it is the opposite: it is the time to deploy more troops and increase our military pressure,” Bezalel Smotrich, the country’s far-right finance minister, said Tuesday. “It would be absurd if we stopped just before the success — the end, the total victory over Hamas.”
The Biden administration hopes a ceasefire in Gaza will calm the growing escalation of cross-border fire on Israel’s northern border. Following the October 7 Hamas-led attack, Hezbollah, the politically powerful Lebanese armed group, has repeatedly attacked northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas, prompting Israeli attacks in Lebanon.
On Thursday, Hezbollah launched a relatively large barrage, firing 200 rockets and mortars and more than 20 drones into northern Israel, the Israeli military said. The attack set off air raid sirens in the area for more than an hour, the military said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Hezbollah said the barrage was partly a response to Israel’s killing of a top Hezbollah military commander the day before in the Tyre region of southern Lebanon. But Hezbollah’s munitions were fired primarily at border areas, avoiding a broader attack on Israel’s heartland that would likely have provoked a more violent response.
More than 150,000 people on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border have fled, with no idea when they might return home. Hezbollah has said its forces will not cease their attacks until Israel ends its military campaign in Gaza. At the same time, Israeli officials have made increasingly aggressive threats about a possible offensive in Lebanon to push Hezbollah away from the border.
