“We don’t have a final agreement on any of the issues that are hampering reaching an agreement,” said Majed Al Ansari, spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry. “We remain hopeful that we can get to some kind of agreement.”

Two senior Hamas officials told Reuters that Biden’s remarks appearing to suggest that an agreement had already been reached in principle were premature.

There were “still big gaps to be bridged”, one of the Hamas officials said. “The primary and main issues of the ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces are not clearly stated, which delays reaching an agreement.”

Israel did not comment directly on Biden’s remarks, but government spokesperson Tal Heinrich said any deal would still require Hamas to drop “outlandish demands, in another orbit, another planet”.

“We are willing. But the question remains whether Hamas are willing,” she said.

Israeli news website Ynet quoted unidentified senior Israeli officials as saying they did not understand “what [Biden’s] optimism is based on”.

‘Schindler’s list of 2024’

Hamas fighters killed 1200 people and captured 253 hostages on October 7, according to Israeli tallies, triggering Israel’s ground assault on Gaza. Health authorities in the enclave say nearly 30,000 people have been confirmed killed.

Hamas has long insisted it would release all of its hostages only as part of a deal that ends the war for good. Israel has said it will consider only temporary pauses, and will not end the war until it eradicates the Islamist militant group.

According to the senior source close to the talks, the draft proposal on the table is for a 40-day truce during which Hamas would free around 40 hostages – including women, those under 19 or over 50 years old, and the sick – in return for around 400 Palestinian detainees, at a 10-for-one ratio.

Israel would reposition its troops outside of settled areas. Gaza residents, apart from men of fighting age, would be permitted to return home to areas previously evacuated, and aid would be ramped up, including urgent housing supplies.

In Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are now sheltering on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, Rehab Redwan despaired at the prospect of a temporary truce leading only to a re-eruption of fighting. The war’s only ceasefire so far collapsed in November after just a week.

“We hope it will be a permanent ceasefire. We don’t want to go back to war because war after the first truce destroyed us and destroyed our houses,” said Redwan, who fled her home in Khan Younis and is now living in a roadside tent.

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“Can you imagine – there’s no food, nothing to drink. There are no basics for life.”

There could be alarm in Israel too over a deal that fails to bring home all hostages. Male Israelis of fighting age are a majority of those now held since Hamas released more than 100 women, children and foreigners during the brief November truce.

Negotiators must insist on the release of everyone, said Shelly Shem Tov, whose 21-year-old son Omer was captured at a music festival stormed by the gunmen on October 7.

“This is a situation which is inhuman. I keep saying that it’s a ‘Schindler’s List’ of 2024,” she told Israel’s Channel 13, comparing the negotiations to a film about a factory owner who drew up a list of Jews to save from the Holocaust.

“Who gets on the list? It really is counting them one by one, to check how many women there are, and who knows how many wounded there are – and what are the chances of my son getting in?”

Reuters

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