Crosshairs: preparations for Israel-Hamas deal accelerate for Trump's arrival
Israel is holding continuous talks with mediators in the hope of concluding a hostage exchange deal soon, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Izvestia. It includes an exchange of kidnapped Israeli citizens for Palestinian prisoners. However, Hamas has yet to provide a list of hostages it is willing to exchange. Moreover, one of them was found dead the other day, which may complicate the negotiations. Nevertheless, experts are confident that Hamas is weakened enough to make concessions, and Donald Trump's rise to power in the U.S. is likely to significantly accelerate the conclusion of the deal. When to wait for an agreement - in the material of "Izvestia".
When a deal between Israel and Hamas may take place
Israel intends to conclude an exchange deal in the near future and is working with mediators on this issue, confirmed to "Izvestia" in the office of the country's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
- Israel is in continuous contact with mediators in the hope of concluding an exchange deal. Negotiations in Qatar may resume soon," his adviser Dmitry Gendelman said.
He specified that the deal involves, among other things, the exchange of kidnapped Israeli citizens for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. The main obstacle to the deal, according to experts, remains the lack of a hostage list. Since the end of 2024, a number of Arab media outlets have reported that Hamas, through intermediaries, allegedly provided Israel with the entire list. On January 5, 2025, even appeared the exact number of hostages that representatives of the movement were ready to release as part of the deal: Reuters wrote about 34 kidnapped. However, Netanyahu's office denied receiving any list of people.
Funeral for Yousef Ziyadneh, a Bedouin Israeli who was taken hostage in a deadly Hamas attack in Rahat on Oct. 7
At the same time, Hamas claims that all the contentious issues that prevented the agreement on Gaza have been successfully resolved. As Ahmad Abdul Hadi, the movement's representative in Lebanon, noted on January 7, "the ball is now on Netanyahu's side," and the mediators are waiting for Israel's official position and the signing of an agreement. At the same time, he called the expected agreement comprehensive, not partial, and emphasized that it is aimed at "a complete end to aggression and Israeli occupation."
Significant progress is also being announced by the US. State Department chief Anthony Blinken said during his recent visit to France that mediators from the US, Qatar and Egypt are "very close" to reaching a new ceasefire and hostage release agreement. He said it was virtually inevitable, even if it would have to wait for the next U.S. administration to finalize it.
The agreement would be based on a plan proposed by Joe Biden in May. It envisions a three-stage release of the hostages. But now the mediators from the US, Qatar and Egypt are focusing only on the first phase of the agreement, i.e. the release of the remaining women, elderly and seriously ill hostages in the Strip in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, a partial withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and a massive influx of humanitarian aid.
However, the rather favorable situation could probably be complicated by the death of one of the hostages. On January 8, the Israeli military said it discovered the body in an underground tunnel in the Rafah neighborhood where the remaining militants had consolidated. The man and his three children were kidnapped during a Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. The two daughters were released during a week-long truce in November 2023. The fate of the slain man's son is not yet known, and the Israeli military believes he may be dead as well.
Why a deal is becoming more and more likely
Right now, the issue of a potential truce between Israel and Hamas is more political than military. This is primarily because the Palestinian movement's military capabilities have been depleted in more than a year of confrontation with Israel. There is almost no fighting.
- We hit Hamas very hard. Yes, they still have fighters and a small arsenal of weapons and are trying to put up resistance in some places. Still, they have been developing as a terrorist organization for about 30 years. Both quantitatively and qualitatively the organization has suffered a lot. At the moment they have no organized military structure, only some attempts to create detachments, which we suppress," IDF spokeswoman Anna Ukolova told Izvestia.
At the same time, she noted that the Israeli army continues to operate on the territory of Gaza: to search for tunnels where terrorists and equipment are stationed, to eliminate militants and gather intelligence on the remaining hostages in the sector.
It is important to note that the movement has suffered serious losses recently: a number of Hamas leaders have been killed, including Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar.
- All of this seems to have encouraged Hamas to somehow soften its demands, because they used to be much tougher. They are no longer demanding the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners. It 's not a fact that they will demand the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip within the framework of such, let's say, a military semi-defeat," says Alexander Kargin, an expert on Israel and the Middle East.
It can be stated that the likelihood of a deal between Israel and Hamas is indeed increasing by the return to the White House of Donald Trump. According to Alexander Kargin, it could be announced even on the day of the inauguration of the US president-elect. At least the Republican in words is very interested in a favorable outcome, while not shying away from obvious intimidation. On January 7, he warned that "all hell will break loose in the Middle East" if hostages held by Hamas are not released by the day of his inauguration.
It's worth considering that Trump developed a close relationship with Netanyahu during his first term - for example, he moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem as a sign of support for Israel. Against this background, Hamas should certainly not expect Washington's support for the Jewish state to diminish.
Grigory Lukyanov of the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences told Izvestia that the deal will be concluded soon. The tangible weakening of Hamas-supporting Hezbollah and the subsequent, albeit shaky, cease-fire with Israel have also given the potential deal a boost.
In addition, recent developments in Syria have politically weakened Iran, a key regional ally of both Hezbollah and Hamas. In particular, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, the bulk of the pro-Iranian militias left Syria after the transition of power in the country to the Syrian opposition and left behind a significant amount of weapons.
The fact that now is not the best time for Iran to engage in active hostilities in the region is also evidenced by its position on the so-called nuclear deal. In early January, Tehran reiterated that it was ready to resume talks on the JCPOA - the country is seeking a deal to lift sanctions amid socio-economic problems in the country. The Iranian authorities have repeatedly sent signals about the possibility of including a dialog with the United States. And the escalating situation in the Middle East is hardly conducive to fruitful negotiations between Washington and Tehran.
