Hamas considering new Gaza ceasefire proposals including extendable brief truces

Plan also offers resumption of humanitarian aid to Gaza and release of hostages and prisoners

Tents sheltering displaced Palestinians at a school in Nuseirat refugee camp, which was hit by Israeli bombardment in central Gaza on Thursday. AFP

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Mediators from Egypt and Qatar are offering Hamas new Gaza ceasefire proposals that include an extendable brief truce, the release of small batches of hostages held by the militant group and the resumption of large-scale humanitarian aid to the battered territory, sources told The National on Thursday.

News of the proposals came shortly after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that negotiations on a Gaza ceasefire and the release of hostages will resume in coming days, ending a two-month hiatus. They will be the first such negotiations since Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed by Israel in Gaza earlier this month.

The sources said the negotiations will resume on Sunday in Doha with senior US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators taking part in addition to top officials from the Israeli Mossad spy agency and its domestic security counterpart Shin Bet.

They said the proposals, which involve an initial 10-day truce and the release of five hostages in the first phase, are under consideration by Hamas, as it continues to publicly insist on a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, guarantees for a permanent ceasefire and the unconditional return of the displaced to their homes as part of any deal.

The plans also provide for indirect Israeli-Hamas negotiations to take place as soon as the initial 10-day truce comes into effect. Extending the truce depends on both sides respecting its terms, a smooth swap of hostages for Palestinian detainees and an agreement to continue negotiating, they said.

The hostages held by Hamas would be released in exchange for Palestinians held in Israel on security-related charges. However, the proposals, according to the sources, offer no written guarantees for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza or a permanent ceasefire.

Hamas is believed to be holding about 100 hostages, of whom as many as 40 are thought to have died in captivity, according to the Israeli military.

At Israel’s request, the sources said, the proposed negotiations would also include the safe passage of Hamas leaders out of the Gaza Strip in exchange for Israeli guarantees that they would not be hunted down in exile, as well as the militant group’s surrender of its weapons.

“Hamas saw Israel’s requests to be rooted in the assumption that the group is as good as finished after Israel’s year-long military campaign and Sinwar's death,” said one of the sources.

“They viewed them as humiliating and may be not worthy of discussion although Hamas is in a very difficult position. We are really back to square one.”

The latest proposals were finalised during a meeting on Sunday in Cairo between top Egyptian intelligence officials and a delegation from Mossad and Shin Bet, said the sources.

The plans were later presented to Qatari mediators who have agreed to discuss them, they said. The US, which has worked closely with the Egyptians and Qataris for nearly a year to broker a ceasefire in Gaza, has been informed of the proposals.

Mr Blinken, currently on a Middle East tour, has not spoken publicly about the new plans reported by the sources. He said in Israel this week that US proposals for a Gaza ceasefire announced in May remained on the table but that Washington was open to other ideas.

However, on Thursday, Mr Blinken said negotiators will meet in the coming days to discuss reaching a Gaza truce as he called for Israel and Hamas to strike a deal.

“We talked about options to capitalise on this moment and next steps to move the process forward, and I anticipate that our negotiators will be getting together in the coming days,” he told reporters in Qatar.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said American and Israeli teams would fly to Qatar.

Asked if Doha had spoken with Hamas following the killing of Sinwar, he said: “We re-engaged with them ... We had some meetings with them in the last couple of days. I believe that until now, there is no clarity on what will be the way forward.”

Mr Blinken’s Middle East tour – his 11th since the Gaza war began a year ago – is perhaps the last push by the Joe Biden administration to end the war on the enclave and Lebanon ahead of the US presidential election on November 5. He was in Israel and Saudi Arabia earlier this week before he flew out to Qatar.

Mr Blinken said this week that Sinwar's killing offered an opportunity to break a year-long deadlock in negotiations to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, claiming the slain Hamas leader was the main obstacle to reaching a deal.

It was now the time for Israel to turn its military victories into “an enduring strategic success” to bring home hostages and to end the conflict with a clear postwar plan, he said.

Taking up a large part of Mr Blinken’s discussions in the region this time round is what is known as the “day after,” or the political and security arrangements for postwar Gaza, as well as the reconstruction of the devastated enclave.

In the year since Hamas fighters attacked southern Israeli towns, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, Israel has laid most of Gaza to waste to root out Hamas, killing nearly 43,000 Palestinians, wounding more 90,000 and displacing the majority of the enclave’s 2.3 million residents.

Israel insists that the war will not end before Hamas is eradicated and militants in the territory no longer pose a threat to its security.

One scenario being discussed by Mr Blinken on his tour is finding a successor for the ailing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and forming a government of technocrats to run both the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Within that scenario, former Palestinian foreign affairs minister Nasser Al Qudwa is the top candidate for the president’s job while former prime minister Salam Fayyad is tipped to return to the job he lost in 2013.

The formation of a technocratic government to run the Palestinian territories until presidential and legislative elections are held was occasionally floated as part of discussions on postwar Gaza, but failure to reach a ceasefire and a hostages for prisoners swap has pushed it down the priority list of the mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the US.