Gaza Cease-Fire Talks Revive After Weeks of Deadlock

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Gaza Cease-***** Talks Revive After Weeks of Deadlock

******** negotiators traveled to the Gulf nation of Qatar on Friday for the first time in weeks to restart talks over a cease-***** deal that could end the war in Gaza and free the hostages held there, after weeks of deadlock in the negotiations.

David Barnea, the head of *******’s Mossad foreign intelligence service, led the ******** delegation to Doha, the Qatari capital, and met with Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, the Qatari prime minister, according to an official familiar with the visit.

Cease-***** negotiations had been stalled for weeks until Wednesday, when ****** announced that it had exchanged some ideas with mediators on a new way forward. Both U.S. and ******** officials said the revised ****** position could allow for an agreement, but cautioned that a protracted and difficult series of deliberations lay ahead nonetheless.

“The head of the Mossad returned a short while ago from an initial meeting with the mediators in Doha,” the office of *******’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a statement on Friday night. “It was decided that next week a delegation will head out to continue the negotiations. It is emphasized that gaps still exist between the sides.”

Both sides would have to sort out the identity, number and conditions for the release of ************ prisoners who would be freed in exchange for the 120 living and ***** hostages held by ****** and its allies. They also would have to determine a sequence of steps for ******** military withdrawal and how much control ******** forces would have at different phases in the agreement.

Most critically, ******* and ****** would have to agree on a formula to resolve the major sticking point that has thwarted talks for months: ****** has demanded nothing less than a complete cease-***** and a full withdrawal of ******** forces, while ******* has vowed to topple ******’s rule in Gaza and maintain postwar security control of the territory.

******* and ****** have been negotiating on the basis of a three-stage cease-***** framework publicized by President Biden in late May. The two sides refuse to talk directly, requiring Qatari and Egyptian mediators to conduct shuttle diplomacy.

Under the terms of the proposed deal, they would first observe a six-week truce during which hostages would be released in exchange for ************ prisoners. During those six weeks, officials would negotiate an end to the war and the withdrawal of ******** troops from Gaza.

Mr. Netanyahu has vowed to ******** ******’s “military and governing capabilities” in Gaza and still says the war will not end until that goal is achieved. But *******’s military establishment — worn down by the ongoing fighting and weighing the possibility of a large-scale battle with Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon — now supports a cease-***** deal even at the cost of leaving ****** in power.

Michael Milshtein, a former ******** intelligence officer, said ******* was not going to successfully topple ******, leaving a truce deal to bring home the remaining hostages as the least bad outcome.

“It is an extremely difficult pill to ********,” said Mr. Milshtein, who oversaw the ************ affairs division in ******** military intelligence. “But there are no good alternatives here.”

*******’s political leaders, however, are deeply divided on the proposed deal, which some argue would effectively leave ****** in power in Gaza. Although the top ******** leadership has given a green light to the framework deal, two senior members of Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition have vowed to oppose it, threatening to bolt from the government. This could potentially force the premier to choose between a cease-***** and his political survival.

On Friday, Benny Gantz, an opposition leader who recently quit Mr. Netanyahu’s war cabinet, reiterated that he would back the prime minister if he decided to advance a cease-***** deal to release hostages. In that case, Mr. Netanyahu would be forced to rely on his rivals for support, a combustible situation that would almost certainly push the country toward elections again.

Mr. Netanyahu did not unequivocally endorse the proposal for weeks. In a television interview last month, he appeared to walk back his support for it, saying he would not countenance an end to the war against ******. After an outcry from the families of hostages, Mr. Netanyahu zigzagged and publicly backed the proposal in late June.

****** faces a similarly complex calculus.

In a statement on Friday, ****** called on all ***** and ******* countries to pressure ******* into ending the “Zionist genocide against our ************ people.”

The group also reiterated its rejection of any plans or proposals that would bring foreign forces into the Gaza Strip. The ideas of an ***** peacekeeping force and more recently, a U.N. peacekeeping force, have been floated as possible solutions to help bring an end to the war and *******’s occupation of Gaza.

“The administration of the Gaza Strip,” ****** said, “is a purely ************ matter, agreed upon by our ************ people in all their diversity.”

Some Gazans increasingly criticize the armed group for launching the Oct. 7 ******* on *******, which triggered the war, without doing enough to protect Gazan civilians. And any agreement would need the blessing of the ****** leader inside Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, whom ******* has vowed to ***** for his role in the surprise ********.

Ahmed Yousef, a veteran ****** member, blamed *******’s hard-line government for the delay in achieving a cease-***** deal in Gaza. But he said many would likely argue the war had not been worth the heavy price paid in Gaza, even should an agreement see ******* release thousands of ************ prisoners in exchange for the remaining hostages.

“Even if many prisoners are freed, no one is going to say that there was any achievement,” said Mr. Yousef, himself now displaced in southern Gaza.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey told journalists on Friday that Western countries needed to exert collective pressure on ******* to achieve a definitive cease-*****. He added that he hoped Mr. Biden’s intervention and Qatar’s mediation efforts would lead to a lasting truce.

While leaders on both sides weigh the path forward, *******’s war in Gaza neared the end of its ninth month. The vast majority of the population has been displaced at least once, with many living in tents, and finding enough food and water to survive has become a daily struggle.

On Friday, ******** forces continued to ****** in Shajaiye, a neighborhood near Gaza City in the north of the territory, in an attempt to ****** down on ************ militants there. The ******** military has increasingly doubled back to areas of Gaza that its forces first swept through months ago, as it battles renewed insurgencies by ****** and other armed groups.

“The military can talk all it wants about having dismantled battalions — but at the end of the day, ****** has survived,” Mr. Milshtein said. “We can tell ourselves stories all day long, but this is not even close to the so-called total victory over ******.”

***** Abdulrahim contributed reporting.

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