Hamas’ counter-proposal for the release of 132 hostages held in Gaza is “a little over the top,” US President Joe Biden said Tuesday night, as Israel braced for the four-month anniversary of the October 7 attack in which the captives were seized.
Biden attempted to put a positive spin on possibly a deal even though Hamas and Israel have been at loggerheads on the question of whether the agreement would include a permanent ceasefire or a pause to the Gaza war.
There “is some movement,” Biden told reporters at The White House, adding that “they’re continuing negotiations right now.”
Blinken is due to arrive in Israel after visiting Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Qatar, as part of his effort to help the parties finalize a deal. The latter two countries are mediating the agreement.
The Prime Minister’s Office immediately stated that “Hamas' answer was forwarded by the Qatari mediator to the Mossad. Its details will be studied in depth by all the parties involved in the negotiations,” it said.In its statement, Hamas said it had “dealt with the proposal in a positive spirit, ensuring a comprehensive and complete ceasefire, ending the aggression against our people, ensuring relief, shelter, and reconstruction, lifting the siege on the Gaza Strip, and achieving a prisoner swap.”A Hamas official who asked not to be identified reiterated to Reuters earlier on Tuesday that the movement would not allow any hostage releases without guarantees that the war would end and Israeli forces would leave Gaza.
Netanyahu has been under domestic pressure from relatives of the hostages to make a deal, while coalition parties have warned that they will quit the government if he does so at any price.
In a statement that underscored the price of protracted negotiations, IDF chief military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Tuesday that 31 of the remaining hostages held in Gaza were pronounced dead.
"We have informed 31 families that their captured loved ones are no longer among the living and that we have pronounced them dead," he told a regular media briefing.
Four months after the traumatic Hamas-led October 7 attack, in which 1,200 people were killed and 253 captives seized, Netanyahu has insisted that victory is an existential necessity and that victory is within the IDF’s grasp but has given no timeline for the end of the war, except to state that it could last months and not years.
The international community has called for Israel to halt the war or at the very least pause it, in light of Hamas’ assertion that over 27,000 Palestinians have been killed. Israel has said that at least 9,000 of those are combatants.
In Doha, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Thani held a joint press conference with Blinken in which they put a positive spin on the possibility of a hostage deal.
“The reply includes some comments, but in general, it is positive. However, given the sensitivity of the circumstances, we will not tackle details,” Thani said.
“We are optimistic and we have delivered the response to the Israeli party,” he said, adding that there were “more prospects for a better result.”
“There will be further negotiations and discussions of the details,” Thani said. “
His words came after a tense week in which Israel has waited for the response, with the absence of public details sparking intense debates about what possible price Hamas would demand for the deal, which is being mediated by Qatar and Egypt.
Blinken said the US has worked intensely to free the 132 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
The first hostage deal was executed at the end of November, in which 105 of the captives were released. Another five were freed separately and the bodies of 11 of the captives were returned to Israel. Israel also counts two IDF soldiers killed during the 2014 war and another two Israelis held captive before October 7, bringing the number of hostages to 136.
Blinken said, “We will continue to use every tool available to us to reach an extended pause that gets hostages out, brings more [humanitarian] assistance in, that brings calm to Gaza's civilians and that keeps diplomacy moving forward to a more integrated region."
“Now that we have the response from Hamas, we are going to be very intensely focused on that. But there is a lot of work to be done to achieve it, we are very focused on doing that work,” he said.
Blinken noted that Hamas created this situation with its October 7th attack and its refusal since then to free the hostages and put down its arms.
Still, he said, when in Israel, he plans to insist that the government must produce results, not just announce an “intention to act” when it comes to some of the demands the US has made concerning the Gaza war.
Thani called for the international community to insist on a ceasefire in Gaza and warned that defunding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which services Palestinian refugees, would have “catastrophic repercussions.”
“We fear complete defunding,” Thani said. He added that Qatar had sent two thousand tons of humanitarian assistance and two field hospitals to Gaza, Thani explained.
Blinken said that his trip was not just focused on the deal but also on larger regional agreements.
On the agenda for his trip has been the revival of a Riyadh-Washington security pact that would include a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Blinken spoke about the importance of integrating Israel into the region through the creation of a two-state resolution to the conflict.
In order to do that, he said, “two things are required; an end to the conflict in Gaza and a clear and credible time-bound path to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
Such a move, Blinken said, would provide “immense benefits” because it would provide Israel with “further integration into the region.
But the focus, for Israel, has been the hostages and the war.
To underscore the importance of making a deal quickly, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana led a delegation of hostage relatives to Capitol Hill to speak with select members of Congress.
Another delegation is in Paris, where the French government is scheduled to hold a special ceremony to mark the months since the Hamas-led October 7 attack, in which 1,200 people were killed in Southern Israel and another 253 seized. A November deal that paused the war for a week saw the release of 105 hostages. Another five were freed separately, and the bodies of 11 of the captives have been returned to Israel.
Some 42 French citizens were among those killed, and some of its citizens were among the captives.
French President Emmanuel Macron plans to issue a special statement at the event. In Israel, relatives of those killed at the Nova Music Festive that October day plan a Jerusalem march near the Knesset. On Tuesday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with relatives of the victims of the massacre, telling them that he “embraced them” and underscoring the impotence of total victory over Hamas.
Reuters contributed to this report.