Gaza hostage talks still stalled, official says, amid reports of incremental progress

A breakthrough does not appear to be on the horizon in the long-stalled Israel-Hamas hostage negotiations, an official from one of the Arab mediating countries told The Times of Israel on Monday amid several reports claiming incremental progress has been made in the talks.

“There’s a lot of noise, particularly from the Israeli side, about a potential breakthrough, but the same elements that have prevented a deal until now are still in place,” the Arab official said.

While Hamas in recent weeks has walked back its rejection of an interim ceasefire deal, it is still insisting that strong assurances be put in place for such a temporary agreement to transition into a permanent Gaza truce — something that Israel will not accept unless Hamas relinquishes governing and security control of the Strip, the official explained.

“Hamas is not going to agree to a complete surrender, but that is still what Israel is demanding,” the Arab official added.

Hamas said in a statement late Monday that it was studying a new Israeli proposal and that it will submit its response “as soon as possible.”

The terror group reiterated its core demand that a ceasefire deal must end the war in Gaza and achieve a full Israeli pull-out from the strip.

Earlier, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that the proposal did not meet the group’s demand that Israel commit to a complete halt of hostilities.

In the proposal, Israel called for the disarmament of Hamas, which the group will not agree to, Abu Zuhri said.

“Handing over the resistance’s weapons is a million red lines and is not subject to consideration, let alone discussion,” Abu Zuhri said.

Hamas has long rejected talk of disarmament, though, its officials have expressed willingness to forgo governing control of the Strip to a transitionary body of independent technocrats, such as the one envisioned in the Egyptian plan for the post-war reconstruction of Gaza that was unveiled last month.

“Hamas is ready to hand over the hostages in one batch in exchange for the end of the war and the withdrawal of Israeli military” from Gaza, Abu Zuhri said, confirming what a senior Hamas official told The Times of Israel earlier this month.

It was not clear whether the latest Israeli proposal to which Hamas said it would soon respond was the same one that officials revealed to The Times of Israel last week, which envisions the release of ten hostages over a 45-day period.

Meanwhile, Hebrew media reported that Hamas has shown flexibility regarding the number of living hostages it would release in a partial deal — now seven to nine, instead of five — but not about its demand that any such deal include negotiations for a permanent end to the war.

Additionally, Arabic media outlets reported that the Hamas delegation, which had been in Cairo since Friday as part of the ongoing hostage-truce negotiations, had left Egypt. A Hamas official — speaking on the condition of anonymity — told the Associated Press that the group was sending a delegation to Qatar, however, for talks later this week or next.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Monday that the premier held a call with the mothers of hostages Tamir Nimrodi, Avinatan Or, and Eitan Horn about the negotiations.

Netanyahu has held such calls with hostage families on a near daily basis in recent weeks, as he tries to buck accusations that he is not urgently working to advance their release.

According to the PMO, Netanyahu described to the parents ongoing efforts to secure the hostages’ return and provided “updates on the existence of intensive negotiations currently underway.”

The premier reiterated his “commitment to the return of all the hostages — both the living and the fallen,” the PMO added.

Also Monday, Channel 13 reported that Netanyahu, in a recent conversation with families of hostages, said “it is possible that the terror group will determine the list of those freed” in a partial-hostage-release for temporary-truce agreement.

When the hostages’ families expressed their fear that military pressure would harm their loved ones, Netanyahu responded that he doesn’t “believe that the end of the war will bring the release of all the hostages,” and emphasized, “We are continuing military pressure,” according to the report.

Had Israel agreed to previous proposals, the prime minister said, “we would have received a maximum of five hostages. Our rationale is to maximize the number of hostages it’s possible to get out.”

The families were said to have also objected to the staged nature of the hostage releases, whereby some are freed while others remain in captivity: “The stages are a mistake. We have to get to one deal that includes all of them,” they are said to have told the prime minister.

“I am optimistic that a deal is close, in the coming weeks, that will probably return 10 living hostages,” he is said to have responded.

Asked how Israel decides which hostages will be released in a partial deal, Netanyahu reportedly said: “At this stage, there is still no mechanism for determining the list — it could be that Hamas, even, will determine it.”

The parents of Edan Alexander, an American-Israeli soldier abducted on October 7 who is the last living hostage with US citizenship, said Monday that Netanyahu told them, too, that a deal may soon be reached.

Hamas released a propaganda video on Saturday in which Alexander, visibly gaunt, says that he heard the terror group was ready to release him three weeks ago and that the government and Netanyahu “refused and left me here.” The statement was almost certainly dictated by his captors.

Israel and Hamas signed onto a phased ceasefire deal in January that fell apart after its first stage. Hamas wanted to transition to the second phase as stipulated in the agreement, but Israel sought to rework the terms in order to free additional hostages without committing to a permanent end to the war, as envisioned in the second phase. After Hamas refused, Israel resumed its offensive in Gaza on March 18.

Netanyahu has long refused to end the war before Hamas’s military and governing capabilities have been dismantled. He is backed by many of his hardline coalition partners who have threatened to collapse his government if he agrees to end the war, which was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 onslaught.

However, successive polls have indicated that the government is out of step with a majority of Israelis who back ending the war started by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack in exchange for the release of all 59 remaining hostages — 24 of whom are believed to still be alive.

Nurit Yohanan and Nava Freiberg contributed to this report.