US says it will not limit Israel arms transfers after some improvements in flow of aid to Gaza

US says it will not limit Israel arms transfers after some improvements in flow of aid to Gaza
The Biden administration says Israel has made good but limited progress in increasing the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza and it will not limit arms transfers to Israel as it had threatened to a month ago if the situation had not improved. (Reuters/File)
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Updated 12 November 2024
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US says it will not limit Israel arms transfers after some improvements in flow of aid to Gaza

US says it will not limit Israel arms transfers after some improvements in flow of aid to Gaza
  • State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said Tuesday the progress to date must be supplemented and sustained
  • “We are not giving Israel a pass,” Patel said, adding that “we want to see the totality of the humanitarian situation improve”

WASHINGTON: The Biden administration says Israel has made good but limited progress in increasing the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza and it will not limit arms transfers to Israel as it had threatened to a month ago if the situation had not improved.
State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said Tuesday the progress to date must be supplemented and sustained but “we at this time have not made an assessment that the Israelis are in violation of US law.” It requires recipients of military assistance to adhere to international humanitarian law and not impede the provision of such aid.
“We are not giving Israel a pass,” Patel said, adding that “we want to see the totality of the humanitarian situation improve, and we think some of these steps will allow the conditions for that to continue to progress.”
The decision from the US, Israel’s key ally and largest provider of arms and other military aid, comes despite international aid organizations declaring that Israel has failed to meet the US demands to allow greater humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip, where conditions are worse than at any point in the 13-month-old war.
The Biden administration last month set a deadline expiring Tuesday for Israel to “surge” more food and other emergency aid into the Palestinian territory or risk the possibility of scaled-back military support as Israel wages offensives against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top national security adviser, Ron Dermer, in Washington a day earlier to go over the steps that Israel has taken since Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned in mid-October of possible repercussions if the aid situation had not improved in 30 days.
Blinken stressed “the importance of ensuring those changes lead to an actual improvement in the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, including through the delivery of additional assistance to civilians throughout Gaza,” the State Department said.
The obstacles facing aid distribution were on this display this week. Even after the military gave permission for a delivery to the northernmost part of Gaza — virtually cut off from food for more than a month by an Israeli siege — the United Nations said it couldn’t deliver most of it because of turmoil and restrictions from Israeli troops on the ground.
Hunger experts have warned the north may already be experiencing famine.
Meanwhile, in the south, hundreds of truckloads of aid are sitting on the Gaza side of the border because the UN says it cannot reach them to distribute the aid — again because of the threat of lawlessness, theft and Israeli military restrictions.
Israel has announced a series of steps — though their effect was unclear. On Tuesday, it opened a new crossing in central Gaza, outside the city of Deir Al-Balah, for aid to enter. It also announced a small expansion of its coastal “humanitarian zone,” where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering in tent camps. It connected electricity for a desalination plant in Deir Al-Balah.
US officials haven’t said whether they will take any action. President Joe Biden met Tuesday at the White House with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who said a “major objective” for the US should be reining in Iran and its proxies. Herzog also called for the return of the hostages taken from Israel in the Hamas attack that started the war, to which Biden said, “I agree.”
A day earlier, Israel’s new foreign minister, Gideon Saar, appeared to downplay the deadline, telling reporters that he was confident “the issue would be solved.” The Biden administration may have less leverage after Donald Trump won the presidential election — he was a staunch supporter of Israel in his first term.
Eight international aid organization said in their report Tuesday that “Israel not only failed to meet the US criteria” but also took actions “that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in Northern Gaza. … That situation is in an even more dire state today than a month ago.”
The report listed 19 measures of compliance with the US demands. It said Israel had failed to comply with 15 and only partially complied with four. The report was co-signed by Anera, Care, MedGlobal, Mercy Corps, the Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam, Refugees International and Save the Children.
In an Oct. 13 letter, the US gave Israel 30 days to, among other things, allow a minimum of 350 truckloads of goods into Gaza each day; open a fifth crossing; allow people in coastal tent camps to move inland before the winter; and ensure access for aid groups to northern Gaza. It also called on Israel to halt legislation that would hinder operations of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA.
Aid levels remain far below the US benchmarks. Access to northern Gaza remains restricted, and Israel has pressed ahead with its laws against UNRWA.
Israel launched a major offensive last month in the north, where it says Hamas militants had regrouped. The operation has killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of thousands.
Through October and the first days of November, Israel allowed no food to enter the area, where tens of thousands of civilians have stayed despite evacuation orders.
Last week, Israel allowed 11 trucks to go to Beit Hanoun, one of the north’s hardest-hit towns. But the World Food Organization said troops at a checkpoint forced its trucks to unload their cargo before reaching shelters in the town.
On Tuesday, COGAT — the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza — announced it allowed a new delivery of food and water to Beit Hanoun a day earlier. Again, the WFP said that while it tried to send 14 trucks, only three made it to the town “due to delays in receiving authorization for movement and crowds along the route.” When it tried to deliver the rest Tuesday, Israel denied it permission, it said.
Aid into all of Gaza plummeted in October, when just 34,000 tons of food entered, only a third of the previous month, according to Israeli data.
UN agencies say even less actually gets through because of Israeli restrictions, ongoing fighting and lawlessness that makes it difficult to collect and distribute aid on the Gaza side.
In October, 57 trucks a day entered Gaza on average, and 75 a day so far in November, according to Israel’s official figures. The UN says it only received 39 trucks daily since the beginning of October.
COGAT said 900 truckloads of aid are sitting uncollected on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing in the south.
“Before the organizations give out grades, they should focus on distributing the aid that awaits them,” COGAT said in response to the aid groups’ report.
Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for UNRWA, said the miliary was not coordinating movements for aid trucks to reach the stacked-up cargos. “If we are not provided a safe passage to go and collect it ... it will not reach the people who need it,” she said.
COGAT blamed the drop in October on closures of the crossings for the Jewish high holidays and memorials marking the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that triggered the war.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 people. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s bombardment and ground invasion have killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to local health authorities, who don’t say how many of those killed were militants. Around 90 percent of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced, and hundreds of thousands are packed into squalid tent camps, with little food, water or hygiene facilities.
The United States has rushed billions of dollars in military aid to Israel during the war, while pressing it to allow more aid into Gaza.
Trump has promised to end the wars in the Middle East without saying how. He was a staunch defender of Israel during his previous term, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says they have spoken three times since his reelection last week.


We cannot allow illegal annexation of the West Bank, Slovenia’s foreign minister warns

We cannot allow illegal annexation of the West Bank, Slovenia’s foreign minister warns
Updated 25 sec ago
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We cannot allow illegal annexation of the West Bank, Slovenia’s foreign minister warns

We cannot allow illegal annexation of the West Bank, Slovenia’s foreign minister warns
  • Nothing and no one is above international law, Tanja Fajon tells Arab News in New York
  • While immediate focus in Gaza must be to ensure ceasefire holds and aid enters the territory, world also needs to keep an eye on the path to a 2-state solution, she says
Ephrem Kossaify

NEW YORK CITY: Throughout the first year of its two-year stint as an elected member of the UN Security Council, the primary world body tasked with maintaining international peace and security, Slovenia was relentless in pressing for a permanent ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in Gaza.
During the 15 months of war, Ljubljana’s representatives also intensified their calls to scale up deliveries of humanitarian aid to the starving population of the territory, while at the same time engaging in serious discussions about ways in which the implementation of a two-state solution might be expedited. Slovenia itself officially recognized Palestine as a state in June last year.
“I'm very proud that Slovenia was on the right side of history with the recognition of an independent and sovereign state of Palestine,” the country’s foreign minister, Tanja Fajon, told Arab News.
She said she is watching developments on the ceasefire front with “hope and relief,” albeit with the awareness that the situation is “very fragile.” All stakeholders in the region will have to commit to the agreement during all of its upcoming phases, she added, until it leads to a “permanent” cessation of hostilities and the dawn of long-awaited peace in the wider region.
During a chat with Arab News on the sidelines of a high-level meeting of the Security Council this week to discuss developments in the Middle East, Fajon said atrocities committed in Gaza during the conflict could amount to genocide.
On Jan. 26 last year, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s actions in Gaza could amount to genocide, and set out six provisional measures with which Israel should comply to protect Palestinians in the territory from the threat of genocide. These measures included ensuring the sufficient provision of humanitarian assistance, and enabling the delivery of basic services.
Amnesty International has accused Israeli authorities of failing to take “even the bare minimum steps to comply” with the court’s ruling.
In November, the UN-backed International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, as well as a former Hamas commander, citing allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
ICC Judges said there were reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant bear criminal responsibility, as co-perpetrators, for the war crime of using starvation as a method of warfare, and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts.
Several countries that are signatories to the ICC ignored its findings, with some stating they would refuse to abide by the arrest warrant.
These and other instances of disregard for international law have led many around the world to lament that the international system, of which the ICJ and ICC stand as main pillars, now lies in tatters.
As Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency, the largest aid organization for Palestine refugees, told Arab News last week, the war in Gaza is a “crisis of impunity.”
He said: “What we have witnessed is an extraordinary ‘crisis of impunity,’ to the extent that international humanitarian law is almost becoming irrelevant if no mechanism is put in place to address this impunity.”
However, Fajon, whose country prides itself on the enshrinement of international law as the main pillar of its foreign policy, said she remains “strongly convinced that there is no alternative to the world order, the UN Charter, international law and international humanitarian law.”
She continued: “We need this organization (the UN.) We need multilateralism to be effective.”
There is a global consensus that there should be no impunity for the perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. But to successfully prosecute these crimes in national courts, effective cooperation and collaboration among governments is essential.
Experts in international law across five continents have concluded that the current international procedural legal framework for mutual legal assistance and extradition in cases involving the most serious international crimes is incomplete and outdated, effectively hampering the ability of states to cooperate effectively in the fight against impunity.
The desire to address this issue ultimately resulted in the development of the Ljublijana-The Hague Convention, spearheaded by Slovenia, Argentina, Belgium, Mongolia, the Netherlands and Senegal, and signed last year by 32 states.
Also known as the “MLA initiative,” it is a landmark international treaty that aims to ensure justice for victims of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and other international crimes by facilitating international cooperation in domestic investigations into, and prosecutions of, such crimes.
Fajon, who is also Slovenia’s deputy prime minister, said: “There can be nothing above international law and international humanitarian law.
“We are strongly committed to the work of international tribunals, be it the ICJ or ICC. And we have to really focus on accountability for those perpetrators who are responsible for atrocities and human tragedies. They have to be brought to justice.”
While the priority now must be to “vigilantly” monitor the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Fajon said, and “do everything in our power” to ensure it holds and progresses to become a permanent ceasefire, “we cannot allow a possible illegal annexation of the West Bank.”
She added that “there are also really serious concerns” about UNRWA’s ability to continue its work, given an Israeli ban on the organization that is due to take effect next week.
Work with the Global Alliance on the Two State solution should also continue to help ensure a “strong” Palestinian Authority emerges after 15 months of war, Fajon said. Slovenia will also work to help facilitate Palestinian Authority control of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, she added, and “really be engaged to make sure there is security for Israelis and statehood of Palestine, for true peace in the region to be established.”
The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, presided over a gathering in New York in September to discuss the situation in Gaza, which was co-hosted by the EU, the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation. From this meeting, which attracted more than 100 participants, the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two State Solution emerged.
The Kingdom plays “a crucial role” in maintaining stability in the region, Fajon said.
“Saudi Arabia is also a very important partner and mediator,” she added. “So I see a strong role of Saudi Arabia, and I hope we can rely on such a strong role also in the future, especially the role that preserves what is most necessary: that is, international law, international humanitarian law, and the UN charter.
“These have to be respected no matter where. And Saudi (Arabia) being a mediator and a good partner also to Slovenia, I do hope we will continue to develop relations in that regard.”

White House says Yemen’s Houthi movement designated as ‘foreign terrorist organization’

White House says Yemen’s Houthi movement designated as ‘foreign terrorist organization’
Updated 23 January 2025
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White House says Yemen’s Houthi movement designated as ‘foreign terrorist organization’

White House says Yemen’s Houthi movement designated as ‘foreign terrorist organization’
  • The Houthis’ activities threaten the security of American civilians and personnel in the Middle East, the White House says

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday designated Yemen’s Houthi movement, known formally as Ansar Allah, as a “foreign terrorist organization,” the White House said in a statement.
The move imposes harsher penalties than the Biden administration had applied to the Iran-aligned group in response to its attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and against US warships defending the critical maritime chokepoint.
“The Houthis’ activities threaten the security of American civilians and personnel in the Middle East, the safety of our closest regional partners, and the stability of global maritime trade,” the White House said in a statement.
US policy, it said, would be to work with regional partners “to eliminate Ansar Allah’s capabilities and operations, deprive it of resources, and thereby end its attacks on US personnel and civilians, US partners, and maritime shipping in the Red Sea.”


Israel military says killed Islamic Jihad militant during Gaza truce

Israel military says killed Islamic Jihad militant during Gaza truce
Updated 22 January 2025
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Israel military says killed Islamic Jihad militant during Gaza truce

Israel military says killed Islamic Jihad militant during Gaza truce
  • The military said Israeli troops in southern Gaza “identified several armed suspects who posed a threat” and “operated to thwart the threat and eliminate” a militant
  • It also said that in several areas of the Gaza Strip, its soldiers “fired warning shots“

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said Wednesday that it killed an Islamic Jihad militant in southern Gaza, the first such reported death since the start of a ceasefire with Hamas in the Palestinian territory.
In a statement, the military said Israeli troops in southern Gaza “identified several armed suspects who posed a threat” and “operated to thwart the threat and eliminate” a militant from Hamas ally Islamic Jihad.
It also said that in several areas of the Gaza Strip, its soldiers “fired warning shots” toward “masked suspects” approaching Israeli troops.
The military added it was abiding by the terms of the ceasefire that began on Sunday.
“The (Israeli military) is determined to fully maintain the terms of the agreement in order to return the hostages,” it said.
As part of the first phase of the ceasefire, which is intended to last 42 days, Israeli forces are withdrawing from densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip.
The military warned Palestinians to “avoid approaching the troops.”


Simmering anger as Turkiye buries ski hotel fire victims

Simmering anger as Turkiye buries ski hotel fire victims
Updated 22 January 2025
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Simmering anger as Turkiye buries ski hotel fire victims

Simmering anger as Turkiye buries ski hotel fire victims
  • The fire, which began in the middle of the night, struck at peak season for the hotel, with 238 guests staying for the winter school holidays which began on Friday

KARTALKAYA, Turkiye: Anger was growing in Turkiye on Wednesday as allegations piled up that negligence played a role in the deaths of 79 people who perished when a huge fire swept through a luxury ski resort hotel in northern Turkiye.
With the nation observing a day of mourning, grieving families began burying their dead as questions multiplied about fire safety measures at the 12-story Grand Kartal Hotel perched on a mountaintop in the Kartalkaya resort.
Front pages, including those of the pro-government dailies, were plastered with allegations of negligence which they blamed for the shocking death toll.
On a freezing foggy morning, with flags flying at half-mast, 12 of the 51 injured were still in hospital, including one in intensive care.
“There is no excuse for such a high number of deaths in 2025,” Ozgur Ozel, leader of the main opposition CHP party, said outside the blackened facade of the hotel where rescuers were combing through the ruins on Wednesday.
The fire, which began in the middle of the night, struck at peak season for the hotel, with 238 guests staying for the winter school holidays which began on Friday.
At a funeral in the nearby town of Bolu for eight members of the same family who died in the blaze, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could be seen wiping away tears, his head bowed.
“When I got to the hotel, there were flames everywhere and we could hear screams,” said Cevdet Can, who runs a nearby ski school.
“I saw one person jump out of the window” to her death, Can told AFP, adding that it was seeing children trapped “that upset me most.”
Another ski instructor who escaped the hotel unharmed said he was unable to rescue his pupils, the youngest of whom was six.
“I lost five of my students who were staying on the sixth and seventh floors,” 58-year-old Necmi Kepcetutan told AFP, adding that another colleague had jumped to her death.
The blaze broke out around 3:30 am (0030 GMT), sparking panic among the guests, many of whom tried to climb out of the windows, using bedsheets as ropes.
Some fell to their deaths, media reports said.
Speaking to Turkish media outlets, many survivors told the same story: that there were no alarms warning them about the fire, no fire doors, and no safe ways for people to exit the hotel.
Tourism Minister Nuri Ersoy on Tuesday said that the hotel had passed an inspection last year and had two fire escapes, saying “no issues related to fire safety had been flagged by the fire department.”
A rescuer with the national catastrophe management agency Afad told AFP on condition of anonymity that “I saw fire escapes, but I suggest comparing this hotel’s fire escapes to those at nearby hotels. In the end, experts will decide.”
So far, 11 people have been arrested, among them the hotel’s owner, general manager, director and chief electrician, as well as the chief of Bolu’s fire department, the justice ministry told AFP.
The hotel’s management has presented its condolences and said it would cooperate with authorities to “shed full light on this accident.”
Situated at one of the most expensive ski resorts in Turkiye, the hotel boasted a prestigious client list that included executives, entrepreneurs and well-known doctors, many of whom were there with their children and family members.
By Wednesday afternoon, more than 20 victims had yet to be identified.


To secure Gaza ceasefire, dealmakers overcame enemies’ deep distrust

To secure Gaza ceasefire, dealmakers overcame enemies’ deep distrust
Updated 22 January 2025
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To secure Gaza ceasefire, dealmakers overcame enemies’ deep distrust

To secure Gaza ceasefire, dealmakers overcame enemies’ deep distrust
  • The deal calls for Israel and Hamas to resume talks just over a week from now, to work out the second phase. That is supposed to include the release of all remaining hostages, living and dead, and a permanent ceasefire

Inside a lavish clubhouse on Doha’s waterfront, tensions strained by months of fruitless back-and-forth weighed on negotiators as the hour neared 3 a.m.
On the first floor, a Hamas delegation whose leader had once evaded an Israeli airstrike that killed seven family members combed through the details of yet another proposal to halt the war in Gaza. On the second floor, advisers to Israel’s intelligence chief, who had vowed to hunt down those responsible for the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war, did the same.
With Qatari, US and Egyptian mediators pushing for resolution, did the sides — such bitter enemies that they refused to speak directly to one another — at last have a deal to pause the fighting and bring dozens of Israeli hostages home?
“They were extremely suspicious toward each other. No trust at all,” said an Egyptian official involved in the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The talks that night a week ago dragged on over disagreements about maps showing where Israel would begin withdrawing troops and its demand that Hamas provide a list of hostages who remained alive, he said.
“Both parties were looking at each word in the deal as a trap.”
By the time Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, announced a ceasefire deal last Wednesday evening, mediators had scrambled again to defuse objections by both sides. Even then, disagreements and delays continued over the two days that followed.
But as the fighting in Gaza paused this week, three young Israeli women were released from captivity and dozens of Palestinian prisoners were freed by Israel, the agreement, however tenuous, has held.
After months of deadlock, a singular moment for dealmaking
The story of how Israel and Hamas found their way to a deal stretches back over more than a year. But the timing and unlikely partners who coalesced to push negotiations across the line help explain why it finally happened now.
“Over the course of the last week all of the stars aligned finally in a way that, after 15 months of carnage and bloodshed, negotiations came to fruition,” said Mehran Kamrava, a professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar.
The agreement was the product of a singular political moment, with one US president preparing to hand power to another.
Both were pushing for a deal to free some 100 Israeli hostages and bring an end to a conflict that began with the killing of about 1,200 in Israel and that Palestinian health officials say has killed more than 47,000 in Gaza.
The health officials do not distinguish between civilians and militants, but say more than half of those killed were women and children.
In tiny but wealthy Qatar, the talks had a steward that positions itself as a go-between in a region on edge, one that hosts the largest US military base in the Middle East even as it provides offices for leaders of Hamas and the Taliban. Egypt, eager to ease instability that has driven an influx of Palestinians across its border and sparked attacks on sea lanes by Houthi rebels, worked to keep the talks on track.
The circumstances partnered Sheikh Mohammed with improbable allies. Then-President Joe Biden sent Brett McGurk, a veteran Middle East hand in both Republican and Democratic administrations. Donald Trump dispatched Steve Witkoff, a Bronx-born real estate billionaire with little if any diplomatic experience, but a longtime friendship with the then-president-elect.
The deal they brought together calls for continued negotiations that could be even more fraught, but with the potential to release the remaining hostages and end a war that has destroyed much of Gaza and roiled the entire region.
Pressure mounted on Israel and Hamas
In the end, negotiators got it done in a matter of days. But it followed months of deadlock over the number of Israeli hostages that would be freed, the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released and the parameters of a pullback by Israeli troops in the embattled enclave.
In late May, Biden laid out a proposed deal, which he said had come from Israel. It drew heavily on language and concepts hammered out with Qatari and Egyptian mediators, calling for a phased agreement with continued negotiation toward a “sustainable calm” – verbiage designed to satisfy both sides.
But talks had stalled even before the detonation of a bomb, attributed to Israel, in late July killed Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ political bureau. And efforts by mediators to restart them were derailed when Israeli forces found the bodies of six hostages in a Gaza tunnel in August.
“Whoever murders hostages does not want a deal,” Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said.
Pressure on Hamas increased after Israeli forces killed leader Yahya Sinwar — an architect of the Oct. 7 attack — and launched a devastating offensive against Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the group’s longtime ally.
But Qatari officials, frustrated by the lack of progress, announced they were suspending mediation until both sides demonstrated willingness to negotiate.
Weeks later, Trump dispatched Witkoff, a golfing buddy whose most notable prior link to the Middle East was his $623 million sale of New York’s Park Lane Hotel to Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund in 2023.
Flying to Doha in late November, Witkoff asked mediators to lay out the problems undermining the talks, then continued on to meet officials in Israel. The talks restarted soon after, gaining ground through December.
“Witkoff and McGurk were pushing the Israelis. Qatar was pushing Hamas,” said an official briefed on the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Cooperation between Biden and Trump advisers was key
Assigning credit for the progress depends on viewpoint.
The Egyptian official recounted the frustration of successfully pushing Hamas to agree to changes last summer, only to find Netanyahu imposing new conditions.
An Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity last week because the negotiations were ongoing said Sinwar’s death and Iran’s weakening influence in the region forced Hamas’ hand, leading to real give-and-take rather than “playing a game of negotiation.”
He and others close to the process said Trump’s rhetoric and dispatch of an envoy had injected new momentum. The Egyptian official pointed to a statement by Trump on social media that there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages were not released, saying it had pressured both Hamas and Israeli officials to get a deal done.
And mediators said the willingness of Witkoff and McGurk — representing leaders loathe to give one another credit for the deal – to partner up was critical.
“How they have handled this as a team since the election, without yet being in office, has really helped close the gaps that allowed us to reach a deal,” Majed Al Ansari, the adviser to Qatar’s prime minister and spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a statement.
In early January, there was a breakthrough in the talks when Hamas agreed to provide a list of hostages it would release in the first phase of a deal, an official briefed on the talks said.
McGurk flew from Washington to Doha hours later. Witkoff followed at week’s end.
The following day – Saturday, January 11 – Witkoff flew to Israel, securing a meeting with Netanyahu even though it was the Jewish sabbath. McGurk called in. Netanyahu agreed to send the heads of Israeli intelligence and internal security back to Doha for negotiations.
That led to extended negotiations, most convening in the Qatari prime minister’s private office, that lasted late into the night.
At points, mediators shuttled back and forth between adversaries on different floors. At others, the chief negotiators for the two sides cycled separately into the prime minister’s office to hash out details.
“But the Hamas and Israeli delegations never crossed paths,” said the official briefed on the talks.
Ceasefire conditions debated up until the last moment
After the lead negotiators for each side left Sheikh Mohammed’s office late Tuesday, the work shifted to the waterfront club owned by the foreign affairs ministry, where “technical teams” from both sides pored over the specific language, a floor apart.
“Until late the first hours of Wednesday we were working tirelessly to resolve last-minute disputes,” said the Egyptian official involved in the negotiations.
After extended discussions focused on the buffer zone Israel is to maintain in Gaza and the names of prisoners to be released, the long night ended with an agreement seemingly at hand, said the official briefed on the talks.
But with reporters gathering Wednesday evening for an announcement, “a last-minute hiccup, last-minute requests from both sides” forced a delay, the official said.
Israel accused Hamas of trying to make changes to already agreed upon arrangements along Gaza’s border with Egypt. Hamas called the claims “nonsense.”
A senior US official involved in the talks said Hamas negotiators made several last-minute demands, but “we held very firm.”
After calling the Hamas negotiators into his office, with the media and the world still anxiously waiting, the Qatari prime minister met separately with the Israelis and US envoys. Finally, three hours behind schedule, Sheikh Mohammed stepped to a lectern to announce the parties had reached an agreement.
Even then, negotiations resumed the following day to wrangle with questions about final implementation of the deal and mechanisms for doing so. By the time the talks ended, it was 4 a.m.
Hours later, Israeli President Isaac Herzog voiced his hope that the deal would bring a national moment of goodwill, healing and rebuilding.
But no one can say how long it will last.
The deal calls for Israel and Hamas to resume talks just over a week from now, to work out the second phase. That is supposed to include the release of all remaining hostages, living and dead, and a permanent ceasefire. But getting there, observers say, will likely be even tougher.