‘Gaza ceasefire deal is 90% done’, says US official
A protester holds a placard during a demonstration demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, as the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas continues, in Rome, Italy, January 27, 2024. REUTERS/Claudia Greco
A senior US administration official has assured that 90% of the terms of a Gaza cease-fire and hostage deal have been agreed on.
Key issues related to a prisoner exchange and the Philadelphi Corridor remain the unresolved obstacles left to be addressed.
Anadolu quoted the official who spoke on condition of anonymity saying, “Ninety percent of this deal has been agreed, and it’s based on terms that even Hamas had in their own proposal.”
The official said that the deal, which has been under negotiation for months, consists of 18 paragraphs, 14 of which are “finished.”
“One paragraph has a very technical fix, and the other three paragraphs have to do with the exchange of prisoners to hostages, which even Hamas’s own text of July 2 explicitly says has to still be negotiated,” the official added.
The official stressed that the phase one of the three-phase deal has never included a “full withdrawal of Israeli forces.”
“It is a withdrawal of all Israeli forces out of densely populated areas. And you have maps that have been produced,” the official said.
“Nothing in the agreement mentions the Philadelphi corridor. What the agreement says is they withdraw from all densely populated areas, and a dispute emerged whether the Philadelphi Corridor, which is effectively a road on the border of Gaza and Egypt, is a densely populated area.”
The prisoner exchange component remains “quite complicated” aspect of the deal, according to the official.
“We really spent most of the last week on this issue in (the Qatari capital of) Doha. You would have hundreds of Palestinian prisoners coming out in exchange for the hostages, give or take 800 or so, including some very significant prisoners, including some with life sentences.”
“I won’t go into all the details of that, but basically what Hamas has been demanding here, the Israelis have come forward to meet the terms as best they can. And Hamas, frankly, on this issue, we’ve had a pretty frustrating process. Until that is worked out, you’re not going to have a deal,” the official added.
