‘Ceasefire, captives deal in Gaza ‘very close’—Blinken

Jan 09, 2025 News

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(TIMES OF ISRAEL) US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that mediators were “very close” to securing a ceasefire and hostage release agreement between Israel and Hamas and that an agreement is all but inevitable, even if it has to wait for the next administration to finalize.

“I hope that we can get it over the line in the time that we have left, but if we don’t, then the plan that President [Joe] Biden put forward for a ceasefire-hostage deal will be handed over to the incoming administration, and I believe that when we get that deal — and we’ll get it — it’ll be based on the plan that President Biden put before the world back in May,” Blinken said during a press conference with his French counterpart in Paris.

The plan unveiled by Biden in May was an Israeli proposal authorized by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which envisioned a three-staged hostage release. Now, however, the US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators are largely focusing on reaching an agreement for the first phase of that framework during which the remaining female, elderly and severely ill hostages would be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners, a partial IDF withdrawal from Gaza and a mass influx of humanitarian aid into the Strip.

The temporary ceasefire would last around six weeks and see the release of roughly 34 hostages, officials familiar with the negotiations have told The Times of Israel. Blinken said that the Biden administration has also spent significant time advancing an initiative for the post-war management of Gaza that includes arrangements for the Strip’s security, administration and reconstruction. “There too, we’re ready to hand that over to the [Trump] administration so it can work on it and run with it when the opportunity is there,” he said.

He then highlighted the work that the Biden administration has done to secure a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. “All of that is ready to go if the opportunity presents itself, with a ceasefire in Gaza, as well as understandings on a pathway forward for the Palestinians,” Blinken says. “So there’s tremendous opportunity there.”

Blinken characterized the outgoing administration’s Gaza “Day After” plan and its effort to secure an Israel-Saudi Arabia normalization deal as ready for implementation, but both initiatives face significant hurdles due to Netanyahu’s refusal to grant the Palestinian Authority a foothold in Gaza and rejection of Riyadh’s central demand for a two-state solution. And while Blinken talked about the opportunities that US President-elect Donald Trump will have to build off of the outgoing administration’s work, Biden aides have privately briefed their Trump counterparts about some of the challenges they will face in the region.

In one of those briefings with senior Trump transition member Joel Rayburn, who is expected to become the next assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, State Department officials warned that recently passed Israeli legislation to effectively shut down the UN agency known as  UNRWA in Gaza could spark a humanitarian “catastrophe.”

The legislation barring Israeli contact with UNRWA, which would severely hamper its operations in the Strip is set to come into place at the end of the month.

Biden officials told Rayburn that no serious backup plan for providing humanitarian supplies and services to Palestinians has been advanced, according to the Axios news site. The outgoing Biden administration has been looping in the incoming Trump administration on the hostage talks, and incoming Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff said on Tuesday that he is traveling to Doha on Wednesday night to join the talks, which he claimed are on the verge of completion.

Before departing, he was slated to meet with Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a close Netanyahu confidant, who has been in the US for meetings with top Biden and Trump aides. Witkoff also told Channel 12 on Wednesday that a hostage deal is Trump’s “most important mission before the inauguration,” adding that the president-elect has instructed him “to apply pressure to advance a deal.” “He prefers a diplomatic solution, but if that does not happen, there will be serious consequences,” Witkoff said.

Trump on Tuesday reiterated his warning that “all hell will break loose” in the Middle East if the hostages are not released by his January 20 inauguration. Relatives of the seven American-Israeli hostages still held in Gaza announced Wednesday that they will attend Trump’s inauguration.

During their time in Washington, the families plan to meet with officials from the incoming Trump administration along with members of Congress and their staff, they said in a joint statement, urging leaders to prioritize the release of their loved ones. While Trump and Biden officials have described negotiations as being on the cusp of a breakthrough, a senior Arab diplomat involved in the talks told The Times of Israel on Wednesday that significant obstacles remained, even as slow progress has been achieved. Also on Wednesday, Netanyahu’s office denied a report in Lebanese media that negotiators were examining the possibility of a truce lasting six to eight weeks, during which Israel would receive a list of the names of all the living hostages.

Around the same time, the families of some of the hostages held in Gaza held a protest outside the Likud headquarters in Tel Aviv, calling for a deal that would see all remaining hostages released. The protesters blocked traffic on King George Street as they marched with an English-language sign reading: “End the war. Hostage deal now.”

On Monday, a forum representing the vast majority of hostage families held a press conference during which relatives of four captives called on Netanyahu’s government to pursue a comprehensive deal that would see all of their loved ones released, blasting the framework Jerusalem is currently pursuing that would only free roughly one-third of the remaining 98 captives during a temporary ceasefire.

While Hamas has long pushed for a permanent ceasefire, officials familiar with the talks have told The Times of Israel that the terror group has indicated willingness in recent weeks to prioritize the first stage of the three-phase deal that has been under discussion since May.

The senior Arab diplomat said on Sunday that Hamas had approved a list of 34 hostages it was prepared to free as part of the deal. Hamas has insisted that it does not know where all of the hostages are, but would be able to ascertain their locations and conditions if Israel agrees to a brief ceasefire. Israel has rejected the idea, insisting that Hamas knows where all of the hostages are. Israel is seeking to maximize the number of living hostages who will be released as part of the deal, while Hamas is looking to hold onto as many hostages as possible, as long as Israel plans to resume fighting once the temporary ceasefire is over. Israeli intelligence assesses that as many as half of the hostages are still alive.

Netanyahu’s office has preferred the temporary ceasefire framework, with the premier arguing that ending the war permanently in exchange for all of the hostages would allow Hamas to regain control of Gaza. Repeated polls have indicated that the majority of the Israeli public rejects Netanyahu’s approach.

Much of Israel’s security establishment has maintained that Netanyahu’s prosecution of the war contains no exit strategy since he has refused to advance a viable alternative to Hamas’s rule, thereby allowing the terror group to repeatedly return to areas briefly cleared by the IDF. The security establishment and the international community have pushed for allowing the PA, which enjoys limited governing powers over parts of the West Bank, to return to Gaza to replace Hamas.

Netanyahu has rejected the idea out of hand, likening the PA — which backs a two-state solution — to Hamas. His far-right coalition partners have backed collapsing the PA entirely and would likely threaten to collapse the government if he considers empowering Ramallah. The security establishment has also backed a more comprehensive deal to free the hostages, arguing that the IDF can return to Gaza if need be and that putting off the release of two-thirds of the hostages not freed in a temporary deal would likely be a death sentence for them.

The ceasefire that US, Qatari, and Egyptian mediators are trying to advance is still within the three-staged framework, but Israel this time around is much more open about the second and third phases not coming immediately after the first one. The second phase of the deal is supposed to see the release of the remaining living hostages — men of military age — and the third stage would see the release of the bodies of slain hostages. On Wednesday, the IDF announced that it had recovered the body of Youssef Ziyadne along with findings that raise concerns for the life of his son Hamza. Hamas is demanding assurances from the mediators that there will be some linkage between the first and subsequent phases, as it seeks a permanent ceasefire. Since the weekend, Qatar has been hosting Israeli and Hamas delegations for talks, but no breakthroughs have been reported.

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Caption:

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• captives, Joel Rayburn, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Times of Israel, UNRWA in Gaza

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