Bel Trew & Nidal al-Mughrabi
The Independent / January 13, 2025
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said talks were at a pivotal point ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration on 20 January
Progress made in talks over Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage release, officials say
Mediators brokering a long-awaited ceasefire between Israel and Hamas are “close to a deal”, a top US aide has said after a midnight breakthrough in talks attended by envoys of both Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
The outgoing US president’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said they were now at a “pivotal moment” in negotiations that he hoped could be concluded within the week.
Families of the remaining 95 or so hostages waited anxiously for news of a deal they have spent more than a year campaigning for.
The text for a Gaza truce and release of hostages, which was loosely based on a deal tabled in the autumn, was presented by Qatar to both sides at talks in Doha, The Independent understands.
Attendees of the talks included the chiefs of Israel’s Mossad and Shin Bet spy agencies as well as Qatar’s prime minister. It is understood that Steve Witkoff, who will become Middle East envoy when Mr Trump returns to the White House next week, was also present.
“We are now at a pivotal point in the negotiations for a hostage deal and ceasefire in Gaza,” Mr Sullivan said at the White House after officials said a breakthrough was reached in the early hours of Monday morning.
“The president spoke with the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday, and just got off the phone with the Emir of Qatar. He’ll be speaking soon, also with President Sisi of Egypt.
“We are close to a deal, and it can get done this week. I’m not making a promise or a prediction, but it is there for the taking, and we are going to work to make it happen.”
Israel launched a ferocious assault in Gaza after Hamas attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, including children, according to Israeli figures.
Since then, Israeli strikes have killed more than 46,000 people in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials, with much of the enclave laid to waste and most of its population displaced.
Rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have accused Israel of committing acts of genocide, something that Israel vehemently denies.
With a mounting death toll and concerns for the fates of the hostages, Mr Sullivan said that the US administration had “accelerated” efforts in recent weeks to get the deal over the line.
He said that Brett McGurk, US special envoy to the Middle East, had been “camped out in Doha, day in, day out, 24 hours a day, working to tighten up these details and try to get this done”.
He added that the deal would be in phases including prisoner exchange for hostages and a surge in humanitarian aid to Gaza “once the guns go quiet”.
However, there have been some major sticking points, officials with knowledge of the negotiations told The Independent.
They include whether Palestinian civilians will be able to return to the north of Gaza, the ongoing presence of Israeli forces in Gaza, and Israel’s demand to control the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, the 14km strip of land between Gaza and Egypt.
The upcoming inauguration of Mr Trump on 20 January has piled additional pressure on the deal and been widely seen as a deadline for the ceasefire, one official said.
Ahead of his second term, the president-elect said there would be “hell to pay” unless hostages held by Hamas are freed before he takes office, while Mr Biden has also pushed hard for a deal before he leaves.
Mr Sullivan earlier told Bloomberg that they were close and that Mr Biden’s administration has been in contact with Mr Trump’s team to present a united front on the issue.
“The pressure building here towards the end of President Biden’s term has been considerable,” Mr Sullivan said. “It’s there for the taking.”
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that negotiations are in advanced stages for the release of up to 33 hostages as the first part of the deal.
“We are not sure if it is hours or days or more,” the official said about the timing of a potential agreement.
A Palestinian official close to the talks said information from Doha was “very promising”, adding: “Gaps were being narrowed and there is a big push toward an agreement if all goes well to the end.”
Israel, Hamas and the foreign ministry of Qatar did not respond to requests for confirmation or comment. Officials on both sides merely described progress at the talks.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt have worked for more than a year on talks to end the war in Gaza, so far fruitlessly.
For months, both sides have agreed broadly on the principle of halting the fighting in return for the release of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian detainees held by Israel.
However, Hamas has always insisted that the deal must lead to a permanent end to the war and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, while Israel has said it will not end the war until Hamas is dismantled.
The breakthrough talks went on until the early hours of Monday. As Mr Trump’s envoy, Mr Witkoff has travelled to Qatar and Israel several times since late November. He was in Doha on Friday and travelled to Israel to meet Mr Netanyahu on Saturday before returning to Doha.
Mr Biden also spoke on Sunday by phone with Mr Netanyahu, stressing “the immediate need for a ceasefire in Gaza and return of the hostages with a surge in humanitarian aid enabled by a stoppage in the fighting under the deal,” the White House said.
Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, a hardline nationalist who has opposed previous attempts to reach a deal, denounced the latest proposals as a “surrender” and a “catastrophe for the national security of the state of Israel”.
The bloodshed continued in Gaza on Monday, with Israeli military strikes killing at least 21 people, medics said, including five in an Israeli strike at a Gaza City school sheltering displaced families.
For the last several months, fighting has been particularly intense along the northern edge of Gaza, where Israel says it is trying to prevent Hamas from regrouping and Palestinians accuse Israel of seeking to permanently depopulate a buffer zone.
Abu Ubaida, spokesperson for the military wing of Hamas, said the group’s fighters attacked Israeli forces in the area killing at least 10 soldiers and injuring dozens of others in the past 72 hours. Israel confirmed on Saturday that four soldiers had been killed.
Bel Trew is The Independent’s Chief International Correspondent
Nidal al-Mughrabi is a senior correspondent with 25 years’ experience covering the Palestinian-Israeli conflict
Additional reporting by Reuters
