US, Egypt, Qatar Near Final Gaza Cease-Fire Terms, Hope to Finish Deal This Week

The U.S., Egyptian, and Qatari governments said they plan to meet in Cairo to discuss the Gaza cease-fire deal.

President Joe Biden announced the framework for the deal on May 31, and the negotiators have been working in the weeks since to get Israel and the Hamas terrorist group to work through the remaining gaps to end the fighting and allow the exchange of hostages held by Hamas and prisoners held by Israel. Representatives from the United States, Qatar, and Egypt, which worked as the chief intermediaries, concluded three days of discussions in the Qatari capital of Doha on Aug. 16, signaling a final deal is close.

“This proposal builds on areas of agreement over the past week, and bridges remaining gaps in the manner that allows for a swift implementation of the deal,” the White House said on Friday morning, in a joint statement shared by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

The three intermediaries said they intend to meet in the Egyptian capital of Cairo before the end of this week “with the aim to conclude the deal under the terms put forward today.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to travel to Israel and Egypt from Aug. 17 to 20 to work on the negotiations.

The May 31 framework Biden laid out entailed a three-part plan. The first phase would entail an at least six-week pause in fighting, with Hamas releasing some more of the hostages they took from Israel on Oct. 7, and Israel pulling its troops back from major population centers. In this first phase, Israel would also release detained Palestinians and allow a surge in humanitarian supplies to reach the embattled Gaza Strip.

The second phase would rely on continued negotiations. The initial six-week cease-fire established in the first phase could be extended as long as all sides remain committed to the talks. If those talks prove successful, Hamas would release its remaining living captives, and Israeli forces would withdraw from the Gaza Strip altogether. The temporary cease-fire would become permanent.

The third and final phase would see Hamas return the remains of any hostages killed during the course of the war, and Israel would allow reconstruction of the Gaza Strip to commence.

Biden shared a brief optimistic note about the latest cease-fire negotiations as he hosted an unrelated signing event at the White House on Friday.

“One of the reasons why I was late for you all, I was dealing with the ceasefire effort in the Middle East,” Biden said.

The president added that he doesn’t want to “jinx” the process, but “it’s much, much closer than it was three days ago.”

Deal Has ‘Uncomfortable’ Elements: Biden Admin Official

The U.S.-Egyptian-Qatari joint statement offered few hints at the existing gaps in the peace framework and how the latest bridging proposal would cover these gaps.

A senior Biden administration official told reporters in a background call that the parties need to finalize the list of captives to be exchanged and the sequence in which each captive would be released.

The senior administration official said cease-fire discussions in Doha had also focused on the humanitarian surge and the initial efforts to reconstruct Gaza after months of urban battle and Israeli bombardment.

“There are elements of the deal that are uncomfortable, just like any deal like this,” the senior administration official said.

Still, the official said this latest bridging proposal aligns with the peace framework Biden laid out in May, and which the U.N. Security Council has affirmed.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby recently rebuked Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government political coalition—for disparaging the negotiations.

Smotrich, in an Aug. 9 social media post, referred to the peace framework as a “surrender” and criticized the idea of Hamas being able to trade civilian hostages for Palestinians that Israeli authorities had detained over the years, including individuals Smotrich deemed as terrorists.

“Some critics, like Mr. Smotrich, for example, have claimed that the hostage deal is a surrender to Hamas or that hostages should not be exchanged for prisoners,” Kirby told reporters in an Aug. 9 response. “Mr. Smotrich essentially suggests that the war ought to go on indefinitely, without pause, and with the lives of the hostages of no real concern at all. His arguments are dead wrong.”

Kirby insisted that while Smotrich opposes the peace plan, Netanyahu remains committed to the framework.

It remains to be seen if Hamas will accept the latest proposal to finalize the cease-fire deal. The United States, Qatar, and Egypt had encouraged both sides to join in the Doha talks, but Hamas representatives did not attend last week’s negotiations.

“Going to new negotiations allows the occupation to impose new conditions and employ the maze of negotiation to conduct more massacres,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters last week.

Control of a strip of territory running through the entire length of the Gaza Strip, known as the Philadelphi Corridor, could prove another sticking point in the negotiations. The Israeli government has indicated it could retain control of the corridor even after the war, but Hamas negotiators have insisted a full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip entails the corridor too.

The senior Biden administration official didn’t directly answer a reporter’s question about who would control the corridor after the cease-fire, but said, “I think that issue is moving the right way.”