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Israel and Hamas have ironed out last-minute disagreements over a draft agreement to stop the conflict in Gaza, sources told The National on Wednesday.
They said lengthy meetings from Tuesday night into Wednesday morning involving mediators from the US, Egypt and Qatar and representatives of the two sides had resolved differences over the proposed hostages-for-detainees swap and the location of Israeli forces after their redeployment from urban centres in Gaza during an initial 42-day truce.
A resolution paves the way for the announcement of a truce agreement, the sources said. However, the on-and-off negotiations on a Gaza deal over the past year have frequently appeared to be on verge of succeeding, only to falter at the last minute.
The sources said Israel had been demanding that male soldiers held by Hamas be included in the first batch of hostages to be released by the militant group. This departs from a draft deal that both sides agreed to in principle under which the Palestinian militant group would free minors, civilian women, and elderly and ailing captives first. Hamas has agreed to free 33 hostages at the initial phase of the draft agreement.
Hamas continued to reject Israel's demand for a full list of hostages held in Gaza, while accusing Israel of not providing it with maps showing where its forces would be positioned during the truce, the sources said. They did not say how these issues had been addressed.
“Those differences have been resolved and, barring unforeseen developments, an announcement will be made later today or tomorrow,” said one source.
Doubts that a deal could be reached persisted throughout Wednesday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office denied an earlier statement by an Israeli official that Hamas had given its approval to deal, while a Hamas official told Reuters the group had not yet finalised its response.
Contradictory reports on the progress of the negotiations have been a hallmark of the process since it was launched shortly after the war began in October 2023, with both sides resorting to brinkmanship and misinformation to secure maximum gains in any deal reached.
Indicating that a deal was now within grasp, the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank has given instructions to hospitals to prepare for the arrival and medical examination of Palestinian prisoners freed by Israel, according to a copy of the directive seen by The National.
A Gaza ceasefire will ease tensions in the Middle East and may spare the volatile region from an all-out war that could involve Iran.
The conflict has significantly altered the region's political and military landscape, sparking a war in Lebanon, drawing Iran into an exchange of direct attacks with Israel and prompting Tehran's proxy in Yemen, the Houthi rebels, to launch missiles and drones on Israel and attack shipping in the Red Sea.
Hamas is believed to be holding about 100 hostages, including 40 who have died in captivity, according to Israel's military. A draft of the deal seen by The National this week shows Israel agreeing to free between 30 and 50 Palestinian detainees for every hostage.
The draft provided for a six-week truce with Hamas releasing three civilian hostages on the day it went into force, and seven more on the seventh day. Three hostages were to be released every week from then on in exchange for Palestinian detainees, including those serving long jail terms.
A major operation to bring humanitarian relief into Gaza will be launched from the first day, according to the draft, with 600 lorries loaded with aid entering each day, including 50 carrying fuel. Rebuilding or repairs of hospitals, medical centres and bakeries would also begin from day one.
The sources said that under the deal, a combined team from the UN and the EU will run the Palestinian side of Gaza's Rafah crossing bordering Egypt, allowing for a larger flow of humanitarian assistance into the Palestinian territory.
Egypt closed its side of the crossing last summer in protest against Israel's seizure of the facility, along with the Salah Al Din, a narrow border strip that runs the entire length of the Egypt-Gaza border on the Palestinian side, a move that Cairo saw as a breach of its 1979 peace treaty with Israel.
The Israeli military is to move its troops away from urban centres and close to its borders during the truce and allow displaced Palestinians to return to their homes, according to the draft. Temporarily, Israel will halt aerial activity over Gaza for 10 hours every day during the truce and 12 hours on days when hostages are released.
Israel and Hamas will engage in indirect negotiations starting no later than the 16th day of the truce to iron out details of the second phase of the deal and the release of the remaining hostages, mostly Israeli soldiers and civilian men.
Reaching a Gaza ceasefire and release of hostages would be the fruition of more than a year of tortuous, on-and-off negotiations mediated by the US, Qatar and Egypt. The US had frequently appeared hopeful that a deal was within reach only for Israel and Hamas to reject each other's conditions and send the mediators back to the drawing board.
The latest push to get a deal may in large part be inspired by Donald Trump winning the US presidential election in November and his repeated threat since that there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages were not released by his inauguration date on January 20.
Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump's incoming Middle East envoy, has been instrumental in the latest effort to get a deal, with the president-elect's inauguration day now the de facto deadline for an agreement, according to the sources.
Also in Doha poring over the complex and intricate details of the draft deal are David Barnea, director of Israel's Mossad spy agency; Ronen Bar, director of Israel's Shin Bet internal security; Brett McGurk, President Joe Biden's outgoing Middle East envoy and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman.
A truce would give Gaza its first respite from war since November 2023 when a week-long ceasefire resulted in about 100 hostages released by Hamas in exchange for almost 250 Palestinians detained in Israeli jails.
“In the war between Israel and Hamas, we're on the brink of a proposal that I laid out in detail months ago finally coming to fruition,” Mr Biden said in a farewell speech at the State Department on Monday. Earlier on Monday, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said a deal could be finalised this week.
The Gaza conflict was started by a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, when its fighters killed about 1,200 people and kidnapped about 250. The attack drew an Israeli response that has to date killed more than 46,700 people and injured more than twice that number, Gaza health authorities say.
Most of the Palestinian territory's 2.3 million people have been displaced and large areas of built-up regions have been reduced to rubble.
