In mid-July, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks were " inside the 10-yard line ." Two weeks ago, he said “ nearly 90% ” of the Gaza ceasefire deal is agreed" upon. On Wednesday, the top U.S. diplomat said the negotiations are now "a question of political will."
His comments represent the progress the mediators have made in getting both sides to agree to a framework of a deal over the last several months but also demonstrate their continued struggle to finalize all the details and implement them.
The United States, Qatar, and Egypt have spent several months acting as mediators between Israel and Hamas to get both sides to agree to a deal that would secure the release of the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas in exchange for a pause or end in the war and a surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza for Palestinian civilians.
Blinken said Wednesday that 15 of the 18 paragraphs in the proposal have been agreed upon by both sides. Speaking in Cairo alongside Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, the secretary said the U.S. has "put forward, with the Egyptians and the Qataris, ideas for resolving" the remaining disputes.
"We’ve put forward different ideas for how to resolve them," Blinken said. "They are clearly resolvable. But the key ingredient to getting a resolution of these outstanding issues is political will. That’s what we’re both looking for going forward. The bottom line is this: The resolution is less a question of substance and more a question of political will. And for both parties, it’s important to demonstrate that political will to get this agreement concluded."
In arguing his point, the secretary of state noted that Hamas "is not in a position to repeat the horrific attacks of Oct. 7th," and that for Hamas, ending the conflict would result "in an immediate massive infusion of humanitarian assistance for people who desperately need it, and clearly bettering the lives of people that they purport to represent."
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Wednesday that the negotiators were no closer to a deal than "even a week ago."
Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack initiated the war. In the attack, thousands of Hamas fighters overpowered the border fence and swarmed southern Israel. They proceeded to kill roughly 1,200 people and kidnap about 250 others, roughly 100 of whom have been held in Gaza for nearly a year. It marked the largest terrorist attack in Israel's history.
A deal would secure the release of the remaining hostages, a handful of whom are Americans, over time. It would also allow for desperately needed humanitarian aid to get to the Palestinian people, a large majority of whom were displaced from their homes multiple times in the conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry. That tally does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, though even Israeli leaders acknowledge that at least about half are civilians.
Israel is believed to be responsible for carrying out two unprecedented electronic attacks against Hezbollah, the terrorist group in Lebanon, this week that could potentially derail the ceasefire negotiations. Hand-held electronics used by Hezbollah operatives near-simultaneously detonated. Over the two days, more than 20 deaths have been reported while more than 3,000 people were injured in these explosions. Hezbollah has vowed to get revenge for the attack, for which the U.S. said it was not responsible.
The U.S. views a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas as a mechanism that could simultaneously reduce the tension between Israel and Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed proxy groups.
A ceasefire with Hamas "would also open important prospects for resolving other high-tension areas, including in northern Israel and southern Lebanon with Hezbollah, the Red Sea, and other places, all of which is in Israel’s interest, as well as opening up opportunities to move in a very different direction in terms of strengthening Israel’s security in place in the region far into the future," Blinken said.
Kirby said it was too soon to tell whether the attacks would harm the ceasefire efforts, though Blinken acknowledged that "time and again, we've seen" various incidents have made "the process more difficult" and that the pager attack "threatens to slow" negotiations.
“I think it’s too soon to know if what happened over the last couple of days is going to have any effect on where we are with a ceasefire deal," Kirby said.
"Sadly, we aren’t any closer to that now than we were even a week ago, so it’s difficult to see any immediate impact of these incidents, but I think it’s just too soon to know in general,” Kirby added, adding that it remains true that 90% of the deal is done. “In terms of the agreed framework and the language, that’s still the case. The framework has been agreed to. The architecture of the deal had been agreed to by both sides, but as we said, once you’re down to the last 10% and you’re in that kind of horse-trading, it gets real hard, and the details get real specific, and that’s where we have run into some resistance.”
One issue of contention that has emerged is over who will control the Philadelphi Corridor, which runs along the Gaza-Egypt border. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he would not agree to a deal that does not allow Israel to maintain control over the area, while Hamas has been steadfast in its demand that all Israeli forces leave the strip during the ceasefire.
Israeli forces have uncovered tunnels along the corridor which they claim Hamas has used to smuggle weapons and people into and out of the strip.
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Abdelatty, the Egyptian foreign minister, reiterated his country's opposition to Israel's long-term presence along the Philadelphi Corridor.
"We have a very frank and clear stance, and we have repeated it many times," he said. "Egypt will not accept any changes to the rules of the war, the existing rules before the 7th of October, especially with regard to the rules of the operation of Rafah crossing from the Palestinian side and the total rejection of any military power on the crossing of borders. And this is a very frank and clear Egyptian stance."
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