The end of the war and the list of prisoners stall the ceasefire dialogue between Israel and Hamas |

A few days before the holy month of Ramadan begins, negotiations for a second truce between Israel and Hamas have stalled just when the word “optimism” was most frequently repeated. The dialogue, which will resume on Sunday, runs aground in mistrust. Israel demands a list of how many of the 134 hostages are alive and how many are not. Hamas wants guarantees that the temporary ceasefire will become definitive – which Israel rejects – and fears signing a phased agreement that will fall apart after handing over the first kidnapped people.

The expectations generated for weeks regarding the possibility of pausing hostilities for the second time – as in the last week of November – to exchange Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners were high. The president of the United States, Joe Biden, even set a date for last Monday. In the end, the Israeli delegation did not even fly to Cairo and the Hamas delegation ended up withdrawing on Thursday, after four days without progress with the mediators: the United States, Qatar and Egypt.

The basic points of the first phase are clear: six weeks of ceasefire to exchange 40 (of the more than 130) hostages in the Strip for the release of 400 Palestinian prisoners and an increase in humanitarian aid to a starving Gaza. According to Biden, Israel accepts it and the ball is in Hamas’s court. On the other hand, a senior official of the Islamist movement, Sami Abu Zuhri, has blamed Israel in a statement to the Reuters agency for “frustrating” the negotiating efforts by refusing to end the offensive, withdraw its forces and guarantee the free entry of aid and the return of the displaced.

The problem is in the details and the horizon. These are the main differences that are holding back the agreement:

Temporary ceasefire or end of war

Both Israel and Hamas understand that the eventual agreement would not mark in black and white the definitive end of hostilities. The differences lie in whether it will open that path (as the Islamist movement insists) or not, as Israel wants. Leaving Cairo on Thursday, Hamas leaders complained that negotiations were focused only on the first phase: the release of 40 hostages: women, men under 19 and over 50, and the sick.

The Islamists would like to move on to a second phase immediately afterwards and only once the parties agree, through the mediators, on “the necessary requirements” to end the war definitively. In this second phase, he would hand over the rest of the hostages alive and dozens of corpses in exchange for the complete withdrawal of the army from the Strip. Israel rejects it, for fear that international pressure will prevent it from reinvading Gaza and because it would mean failing to meet its objectives, by leaving a sort of Hamas government active.

“Hamas will be seeking maximum guarantees in exchange for the release [de los rehenes], because when he releases them he will have been left with no way to put pressure on Israel,” says Mabel González Bustelo, an expert in international mediation and conflict resolution at the Institute for Conflict Studies and Humanitarian Action (Iceah). “Ceasefire negotiations are very difficult, almost as difficult as those at the end of a war,” she adds.

Distrust prevails. A Hamas leadership source quoted by Al-Mayadeen television blamed the stalemate on the “insistence of the Israeli side on not providing clear answers.” The opposite happens with Israel, which does not believe the statement by Basel Naim, leader of Hamas, that they do not know how many hostages live (not all of them are in their hands) nor can he investigate it without a pause in the bombings.

An Israeli soldier in Gaza, on Tuesday.ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES (via REUTERS)

Avi Issajarof, military affairs commentator in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonotbelieves that the hidden leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahia Sinwar, is “betting everything” that, if Israel does not accept the end of the war (which Hamas would present as a victory), the month of Ramadan “will mark a change,” with the outbreak of a massive intifada joined by Palestinians from the West Bank or those with Israeli citizenship.

“A few days before Ramadan, multiple measures are used to pressure others and try to force them to change. But, at the same time, when they leave the table, the negotiation does not end. It is not only negotiated at the table,” says González Bustelo. This month, in which any spark can set the street on fire, begins on Sunday or Monday. On Thursday, Israel’s Interior Minister Moshe Arbel and the head of the internal security services (Shin Bet), Ronen Bar, met with officials from the Israeli Arab community. The minister acknowledged that they have a “challenge” ahead of them.

Return of the Gazans to the north

Hamas initially focuses its demands on five points: exchange of hostages for prisoners, ceasefire, withdrawal of troops and end of the siege, unlimited entry of humanitarian aid and return of the displaced to their places of residence, explained one of its members. members, Mahmud Mardawi, to the Palestinian agency Quds News. The last point has ended up becoming one of the main obstacles. Hamas demands that some of the hundreds of thousands of residents in northern Gaza that the army displaced to the south at the beginning of the war be able to return to see the state of their homes. Most are damaged or destroyed.

The Israeli army fears that it will involve the reorganization of Hamas battalions in the north that, in its own jargon, it has already “cleansed.” In fact, few things cause more shock in Israel than the ―very specific― rocket fire from areas from which troops have withdrawn or the video that showed the hostages leaving underground (for the first exchange) in an area already combing. Hamas asks 500 families per day for a ceasefire, according to Saudi Al Arabiya television. Israel is not closed to the idea, but only wants women and children. One formula to study is to also include elderly men, that is, those who are not old enough to fight.

Prisoners with “blood on their hands”

According to sources familiar with the dialogue cited by the Israeli newspaper HaaretzIn the first phase, Hamas calls for the release of 100 prisoners “with blood on their hands,” as those who have killed Israelis for nationalist reasons are called in the country. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been using an ambiguous formula by stating that he will not release “hundreds of terrorists” in exchange for the hostages.

Another tricky issue is who. Hamas asks for the most famous prisoner: Marwan Barghouti, with five life sentences and behind bars since 2002. Aware of its weakness on the battlefield, the Islamic Resistance Movement (the full name of Hamas) wants to take advantage of what is the largest Number of hostages ever captured in Israel’s history: more than 240. About half were freed in the November exchange. Hamas knows that, once they are handed over, it will be left without its main weapon to demand an end to the conflict.

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