Over the past few days, mediators reworked the proposal that Hamas responded to on Monday to get past hurdles that weren’t going to work for Israel, two sources familiar with the talks said.
CIA Director Bill Burns traveled to Cairo late last week and then on to Doha where he worked with the Qataris on the language so that it could be a workable basis for discussions with Israel.
Hamas responded to this re-worked framework on Monday, both sources said. Based on that draft, Israel will send a working-level team of experts to join more talks in Cairo on Tuesday, one source said.
According to the second source, a diplomat, Burns was in meetings with Qatar’s prime minister when the Hamas response came in and Burns was immediately given a copy.
The toughest part has been the question of a permanent ceasefire and the ways to address the issue in an agreement, one of the sources familiar with the discussions said.
That goal of a permanent ceasefire is not mentioned in the first phase of the proposal, the source said. Instead, the first phase is when Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners are expected to be released during a multi-week pause in the fighting. Officials believe more negotiations will be needed before a permanent ceasefire is reached, the first source said.
Meanwhile, United States officials have pushed back on Hamas’ initial public declaration on Monday that they had “agreed” to a ceasefire agreement, saying that in fact, what Hamas did was to come back with a counterproposal with changes. That counterproposal will need further negotiation, the US officials said, describing what Hamas presented as “amendments” to an earlier proposal.
