Israel’s prime minister met with the U.S. president-elect’s envoy, then dispatched a high-level team to negotiate as reports circulated that a deal was close.
Israel and the Hamas terrorist group may be closer to a cease-fire and hostage deal, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sending a high-level negotiating team to Qatar on Jan. 11.
Netanyahu recently met with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s designated Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, who spoke of significant progress in the talks. Witkoff said he hoped for an agreement before Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
Netanyahu, after conferring with his defense minister, the heads of the security establishment, and U.S. negotiators, dispatched a team including the heads of Mossad and Shin Bet, Israel’s foreign intelligence and counterintelligence agencies, and his foreign policy adviser, to Doha, Qatar’s capital, the prime minister’s office said in a social media post.
Under discussion is a phased cease-fire, with Netanyahu signaling that he is committed only to a first phase, a partial hostage release in exchange for a weekslong halt in fighting.
Hamas has insisted on a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu’s government has insisted on retaining the Philadelphi Corridor, along the Gaza–Egypt border, and the Netzarim Corridor, which cuts the Gaza Strip in two, as a necessary condition, in order to prevent arms smuggling and to impede Hamas’s movement throughout Gaza. Netanyahu has insisted on destroying Hamas’s ability to fight.
Trump has reiterated a stark warning that he had made before. In a news conference at Mar-a-Lago on Jan. 7, he warned, “All hell will break out” if Hamas hasn’t released the hostages, including seven Americans, three of whom are believed to be dead, by the time that he takes office.
“It will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone,” Trump said.
On Jan. 11, an Israeli official said some progress had been made in the talks, in which Israel and Hamas communicate indirectly through the mediating nations.
