While the U.S. said Sunday that multinational talks in Paris produced ‘an understanding’ toward a ceasefire and hostage release, Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, reduced hopes for a possible hostage agreement with Hamas.
“Hamas started out with just crazy demands. It’s too soon to say if they’ve abandoned them,” Netanyahu was talking on CBS’ show ‘Face the Nation.’
Though he acknowledged that Israel wants to see the hostages released, he also stated that Hamas is on “another planet” in the negotiations.
“Unless we have total victory, we can’t have peace,” Netanyahu said.
Earlier, the Israeli delegation led by Mossad chief David Barnea was in the French capital on Friday to discuss a deal to ensure a fresh ceasefire and the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
“Representatives of Israel, the United States, Egypt, and Qatar met in Paris and came to an understanding among the four of them about what the basic contours of a hostage deal for a temporary ceasefire would look like,” White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told CNN.
Over the past few weeks, the Israeli leader and the Biden administration have taken different directions. The Biden administration had strongly opposed the standalone bill that would provide $17.6 billion in aid to Israel and said the president would veto the bill if it reaches his desk.
More than four months into the war, desperate families in the north of the besieged Gaza Strip have been forced to scavenge for food as fighting and looting have stopped humanitarian deliveries.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the military operation into Rafah, on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, would put Israel within weeks of “total victory” over Hamas whose October 7 attack triggered the war.
Meanwhile, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was also in Cairo this week to meet Egyptian mediators. Although there hasn’t been an official confirmation yet, security sources in Egypt reported that additional negotiations between Israeli and Hamas representatives would take place in Qatar this week.
The war broke out after Hamas’s unprecedented attack which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
Hamas militants also took about 250 Israeli and foreign hostages, 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 presumed dead, according to Israel. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 29,606 people, mostly women and children, according to a Saturday tally from Gaza’s health ministry.
