Jerusalem
CNN
—
Hamas is “very close to an agreement” with Israel for a ceasefire in Gaza and the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners, according to an official from the militant group, as the Israeli government also announced progress in the negotiations.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Monday that Israel is working hard to reach a deal in the ongoing negotiations being hosted in the Qatari capital of Doha, and that “progress was made.”
“Israel wants a hostage deal. Israel is working with our American friends in order to achieve a hostage deal, and soon we will know whether the other side wants the same thing,” Saar said in a news conference in Jerusalem.
Several sticking points remain, however, the Hamas official told CNN.
They include Hamas’ demands that Israel withdraw from the Philadelphi corridor, a narrow strip of land along the Egypt-Gaza border, and commit to a permanent ceasefire rather than a temporary halt to the military operations launched in the wake of the Hamas October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.
Disagreement also remains over an Israeli-proposed buffer zone inside Gaza to run along the strip’s eastern and northern borders with Israel. The official said that Hamas wants the buffer zone to return to the pre-October 7 size of 300-500 meters (330-545 yards) from the border line, while Israel is requesting a much larger 2,000-meter depth.
“We believe this means that 60 km (37 miles) of the Gaza Strip will remain under their control, and displaced people will not return to their homes,” the official said.
Beyond those key demands, the Hamas official said that negotiators were hammering out specific details of the release of Palestinian prisoners and maps covering the areas from which Israeli forces would withdraw.
Qadura Fares, the head of the Palestinian Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees, told CNN separately on Monday that he is traveling to Doha to advise negotiators on the list of detainees to be released “in the event the deal materializes.”
The optimistic tone was tempered though by Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said Monday that the potential ceasefire-hostage deal would be a “catastrophe” for Israel’s national security. In a post on X, Smotrich described it as a “surrender deal” that would include releasing “terrorists” and “dissolving” the war’s achievements.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with US President Joe Biden on Sunday, their first publicly announced call since October, about the progress in negotiations.
Netanyahu, who met with President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, on Saturday, is facing pressure from both the current and incoming US administrations to reach a deal.
A source familiar with the ceasefire-hostage talks told CNN Monday that Trump is the incentive for Israel to strike a deal with Hamas. The source said Netanyahu “wants to remain close to Trump.”
“There’s a bigger picture here that he (Netanyahu) wants to achieve. And you know, remaining on track with Trump is important. That’s the thing,” the source added. They said that even if there is no deal by January 20, when Trump will be sworn in as president, then “we have to get to a framework” by that date.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday that while reaching a deal by January 20 is “possible,” he “cannot make any predictions.”
“We are very, very close, and yet being very close still means we’re far, because until you actually get across the finish line, we’re not there,” Sullivan said.
Gazans hope for a ceasefire
Since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the death toll from Israeli military action in Gaza has risen to 46,584, with 109,731 people injured, according to the latest daily report from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The report added that a number of victims are still under the rubble and on roads, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them.
Meanwhile, a peer-reviewed study by researchers from a leading health research university in the UK found the number of people killed in Gaza is significantly higher than the figure reported by authorities in the enclave.
Gazans who spoke to CNN on Monday said they hoped negotiations could end the war, but they fear announcements of progress towards a deal are all “empty” promises.
“Every time they say there are negotiations, we hear nothing but their failure,” said Khan Younis resident Abdul Rahman Salama, who spoke to CNN as he was trying to recover items from the rubble of his destroyed house. “The destruction is unreal. I hope the war stops as suddenly as it started; it will end suddenly, but the negotiations are all empty talk — lies upon lies.”
Ahmad Salama, another man displaced from Khan Younis, said: “My family hopes that the negotiations will succeed so the war will end, and we can return to safety, and the fear and terror will stop, and we won’t have to flee from one place to another with the children and my mother again.”
CNN’s Nadeen Ebrahim and Tareq Al Hilou contributed to this report.