The deal would call for Israel and Hamas to freeze their combat operations for five days while a small group of hostages are released each day.
Source: Huffington Post
The U.S., Israel and Hamas are nearing a tentative deal that could result in the freeing of dozens of hostages held in Gaza, sources told The Washington Post on Saturday.
Under this U.S.-brokered agreement, Israel and Hamas will be expected to freeze all combat operations for five days while about 50 hostages are released every 24 hours. There is believed to be a total of about 239 hostages being held in Gaza, according to the Post. The pause, which would be monitored by overhead surveillance, would also assist in allowing humanitarian aid to enter.
An outline of the deal was drafted in Doha, Qatar, in recent weeks by Qatari mediators representing the three involved parties in conflict, The Washington Post reported.
The hostages could start being released in the next several days, pending the closing of the agreement. The possibility of Israel agreeing to the pause remained unclear in recent weeks.
A White House spokesperson said a deal has not yet been reached, but is still working toward one.
“We have not reached a deal yet, but we continue to work hard to get to a deal,” Adrienne Watson, spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council, posted on X.
On Oct. 7, the Gaza-based militant group launched a surprise attack on Israel. In retaliation, Israel launched air strike attacks on the territory and declared war. For over a month, Israel has continued to strike at Gaza with the hopes of eliminating Hamas, which has since taken several Israeli hostages.
Categories: The Muslim Times
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said on Sunday he had growing confidence that a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas would be reached, adding challenges that remained were “very minor”.
“The challenges facing the agreement are just practical and logistical,” Sheikh Mohammed said at a joint press conference with European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in Doha.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-19/ty-article/negotiations-over-hostage-release-held-up-as-israel-waits-for-hamas/0000018b-e69d-dffa-adef-e69d32ea0000
CNN
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A recent draft of a possible deal to secure the release of hostages that Hamas is holding in Gaza proposes a four- to five-day pause in fighting for the initial release of 50 hostages, two sources familiar with the talks told CNN.
An agreement has yet to be struck and the text of a deal has been traded back and forth for weeks. But negotiators from various countries, including senior Biden administration officials, are expressing rare optimism about the progress. Gaps in some of the major sticking points have begun to close, sources say, and while the talks could still break down, an agreement may now be days away.
“We think that we are closer than we have been perhaps at any point since these negotiations began weeks ago,” deputy national security adviser Jon Finer told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” on Sunday. Finer did not get into details of the talks and stressed that there is no final deal in place.
In a sign of how tenuous the talks have been, two sources told CNN that in recent days, Hamas had put the negotiations on hold at least once. One of the many issues that the terrorist group raised, and that appeared to have prompted Hamas abruptly going dark amid the talks, was Israel’s raid of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. But the discussions eventually picked back up.
One key issue yet to be finalized is how to implement the deal, including around aid shipments to Gaza, one source familiar with the negotiations said Sunday on the heels of a meeting between Qatar’s prime minister and Brett McGurk, the White House coordinator for Middle East affairs. Qatar has served as a main interlocutor in the talks.
The most recent discussions have proposed the staggered release of civilian hostages, with pauses potentially increasing after Hamas allows for an initial release of a significant number of those captured, according to the sources.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/19/politics/hamas-hostage-release-deal-pending/index.html