Israeli hostage deaths ‘changed everything’ about Gaza cease-fire talks

U.S. and Israeli officials acknowledged that the killing of six hostages in Gaza over the weekend has blunted progress made in recent weeks by negotiators toward a cease-fire deal between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The news of their deaths deflated recent optimism that a deal was close at hand, as both sides forecast strong retaliation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They also worry tensions between Israeli leadership and Hamas will only continue to increase, potentially further stalling negotiations.

“It does not look good,” one Israeli official briefed on the negotiations said. “We are still working at it, but the hostages being killed changed everything.”

Those fears, though expressed privately, stand in stark contrast to what U.S. officials telecasted last week.

After negotiators met in Cairo on Aug. 26, Biden officials said the talks were on track and that they were optimistic a deal would soon be reached. All that was left to work out were a few minor details, they said at the time.

But those small details have since become major hurdles, and they are proving much more difficult to overcome than some inside the administration initially anticipated.

The main sticking point between the two sides is the presence of Israeli troops along the Philadelphi Corridor — a small strip of demilitarized borderland that separates Gaza from Egypt.

Netanyahu wants at least some of his troops stationed there to prevent the militant group from using a purported network of tunnels to smuggle weapons and fighters through the border with Egypt. There are also simultaneous negotiations taking place with Egypt about who will control the official border between Egypt and Gaza known as the Rafah crossing. The international negotiating group, comprised of representatives from Qatar, Egypt, Israel and the U.S., has previously discussed potentially bringing in a third party to operate the crossing.

The National Security Council declined to comment on the status of negotiations.

President Joe Biden has grown increasingly frustrated with Netanyahu — his vexation obvious over the weekend when he responded with a curt “no” to a reporter who had asked whether the Israeli prime minister was doing enough to close the deal.

That bluntness came as no surprise to some of Biden’s senior aides, who have watched the president sour on his Israeli counterpart over the belief that Netanyahu is extending the war to remain in power, according to two officials not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations.

Since abandoning his reelection bid, Biden has viewed achieving a cease-fire deal before the election as a sure way to bolster his own legacy — and to help Vice President Kamala Harris’ chances this November, the officials said. A Harris win would also burnish Biden’s chapter in the history books.

And the president grew particularly emotional after the death this weekend of an American citizen, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who had been held captive in the Gaza tunnels, the officials said. Biden was moved by Polin’s parents, who made an emotional plea at the DNC last month, and he told aides that their months of worry followed by sudden grief reminded him of the excruciatingly slow loss to cancer of his own son, Beau.

Meanwhile, tensions between Israel and Hamas appear to be mounting.

Following the hostage deaths Sunday, Netanyahu made a speech, saying he would not compromise on the issue of the Philadelphi Corridor and batted down any suggestion that he was not prioritizing bringing Israelis home from Gaza.

“If we do leave [the Philadelphi Corridor], we may not return for 42 years,” he said. “This corridor is different from all the other places — it is central, it determines all of our future.”

Hamas on Sunday released video footage of the six hostages who were killed, vowing to release more in the coming days, including what the group has described as their “last messages.”

At the same time, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have come out in protest across Israeli cities , urging the government to reach a cease-fire deal quickly and bring the remaining hostages home alive.

On Monday, U.S. officials were still adamant that a deal is possible, but they backed off their previously confident rhetoric that an agreement was close.

“I can’t guarantee a certain outcome, we just believe it is an outcome that is possible,” said National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby. “It’s not optimism. It is pragmatism.”

Kirby defended the administration’s past statements, saying they “were accurate.”

“But we also never said it was going to be easy,” he said. “I can’t tell you what the timeline looks like.”

Eric Bazail-Eimil contributed to this report.

A version of this article previously appeared in POLITICO's National Security Daily newsletter. Like this content? Consider signing up!