Details of the deal have not been made public, but Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said it is “98 percent” of the ceasefire deal proposed by President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, in May—fighting between Hamas terrorists and the IDF would be paused for 60 days and a major hostage-for-prisoner swap would proceed. This proposal reportedly stipulates that Hamas would release 10 living Israeli hostages—or half of those who are believed still to be alive—in addition to the bodies of 18 hostages who have died. In return, Israel would release 200 Palestinian prisoners serving sentences of at least 15 years, including 140 serving life sentences. According to BBC reporting, this would also require the release of 1,500 detainees in Gaza, and a “senior Hamas official” told CNN that every Palestinian woman and minor currently imprisoned in Israel would also be freed.
Publicly, the Israeli government has been dismissive of the deal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has only obliquely referred to it, saying Hamas is operating under “immense pressure.” A representative for his office told Israeli journalists in a briefing that the government’s policy remains unchanged: It demands “the release of all 50 hostages in accordance with the principles set by the cabinet to end the war.” But Netanyahu’s government hasn’t explicitly rejected the deal, and both Times of Israel and Jerusalem Post reported the government is considering it. This comes at a time when the Israeli government tries to balance internal pressure from nationalists demanding no compromise with Hamas and to proceed with the planned IDF military takeover of Gaza City—which Israel’s Security Cabinet approved on August 8—and wider pressure from the Israeli public to end the war and bring the hostages home.
Egyptian and Qatari mediators had been in talks for months regarding a potential ceasefire deal, but Hamas repeatedly made clear the terms on the table were unacceptable. Last month, Trump expressed skepticism that a ceasefire was on the horizon, stating Hamas negotiators “didn’t really want to make a deal.” But it seems at least for now Hamas has changed its approach.
“What Hamas is afraid of, I think, is the Israeli takeover of Gaza City and they want to prevent it,” Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and who served in the three presidential administrations, told TMD.
John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and former national security adviser for Vice President Dick Cheney, reiterated this point. “This new offensive has injected a real degree of urgency in all the mediators: the Egyptians, the Qataris, even the Turks,” and Hamas itself, Hannah explained to TMD. “Military pressure does work on these guys.”
Hamas has made it known that it’s using Israeli hostages as leverage. Just earlier this month, Hamas circulated a video of Israeli hostage Evyatar David—who was kidnapped at the Nova music festival—in which David is visibly malnourished in a nondescript underground tunnel, digging what he said could be his own grave. “Hamas’ goal, of course, is going to be able to live to fight another day,” Michael Singh, the managing director and senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told TMD. “It’s an organization dedicated to destroying Israel. They’re not going to give up on that, and their choice to release or keep hostages will probably be based on what they feel best kind of preserves their ability to fight another day.”
Yet, for Hamas, it might be too late. The IDF is reportedly set to issue call-up orders today for 60,000 reserve soldiers and—while not all will ultimately deploy to Gaza City— those assigned to the operation could be ready to do so within two weeks.
That doesn’t necessarily indicate Israel plans to turn down the ceasefire, but since the October 7 attacks Netanyahu’s government has had two goals: Free the hostages and end Hamas rule in Gaza. “It’s a classic Hobson’s choice, right?” Singh said. “If you say no to a ceasefire deal, there’s a real risk you’re consigning those hostages to die inside Gaza in captivity. If you accept a partial ceasefire deal and leave Hamas in place, you’re really just setting the conditions for the next war.” Already, some ultranationalist Israeli officials have pushed Netanyahu to turn his back on a deal that spares Hamas from destruction.
“You have no mandate to go for a partial deal,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said in a statement addressed to the prime minister. “The blood of our soldiers is not worthless. We must go all the way. Destroy Hamas.” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich echoed the point, writing on X that Hamas is only open to negotiation because of the Gaza plan: “It understands that this will eliminate it and end the story. Therefore, it is trying to stop it by bringing back the partial deal. This is exactly why we can’t surrender and grant the enemy a lifeline.”
But Netanyahu is also under pressure from much of the Israeli public, who want to see more effort and success in securing the release of the remaining hostages. Protests erupted across the country on Sunday, with an estimated 500,000 demonstrators taking to the streets in Tel Aviv, rallying against the war’s continuation and calling for an immediate hostage release deal. The looming decision for Netanyahu is an “enormously complicated calculation,” Hannah said. “You’ve got a country that’s been at war now for 23 months that is very tired. A significant part of the population wants to just get the hostages back and end the war.”
There are also international relations to consider. Concern over the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the lack of critical resources accessible to Palestinian civilians pushed several nations—including Australia, Canada, France, and the U.K.—to officially recognize Palestinian statehood in recent weeks. Though Israel said last week that it’s allowing more trucks carrying humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated that, in July, more than 13,000 Gazan children were admitted to treatment centers for acute malnutrition, while 2,800 were diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition. To read more on the difficulties bringing humanitarian relief into Gaza, read July 24’s TMD.
However, even if both sides are motivated to make a ceasefire deal, it’s the details that could derail it. Negotiators and Hamas representatives are sharing the “98 percent” number to indicate just how close this is to a previous U.S.-sanctioned ceasefire, but Hamas could slip a lot of negotiation non-starters into that remaining 2 percent. The terror group has seemingly dropped most of the demands that led to the collapse of ceasefire talks in July but those that remain may be unsurpassable; and rather than a genuine effort to make a deal, this may be little more than a Hail Mary to delay the operation in Gaza City.
“We have heard Hamas say many times that it is accepting this or that ceasefire proposal only for the discussions to get then really bogged down over what they sound like insignificant details, but actually end up being major issues,” Singh said. These sticking points can include the process for which humanitarian aid is distributed within Gaza, as well as “the exact sort of wording or mechanism for whether the cease fire gets extended.”
Similarly, Hannah noted both sides must not only agree on the number of hostages and prisoners to be exchanged, but also on which hostages and prisoners to exchange. “There’s always those questions about exactly which Palestinian killers and murderers are going to get out,” he said. “Hamas had upped the ante by saying any release of Palestinian prisoners” had to include perpetrators of the October 7, 2023, attacks. “And that obviously was impossible for Israel.”
“Nothing is done until it’s done,” Jonathan Schanzer, the executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former Treasury Department official who froze Hamas funding schemes, told TMD. “There have been multiple moments throughout this conflict where deals appear to have been agreed upon and then are scuttled. So, I don’t believe anything right now until I actually see something signed and implemented.”
While many of the hostages kidnapped on October 7 have been freed in previous hostage exchanges, as many as 41 so far may have died in Gaza.
