Netanyahu added new conditions to ceasefire proposal: Report

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added new conditions in late July to a ceasefire proposal delivered to American, Egyptian, and Qatari mediators, which has hardened Israel’s position and complicated negotiations, according to documents seen by The New York Times.

Netanyahu has repeatedly denied that his government was shifting goalposts during negotiations, but the documents suggest Israeli forces now want to keep control of the southern border with Egypt and are showing “less flexibility” in allowing Palestinians to return to their homes in northern Gaza after fighting ends.

Israel and the US have repeatedly blamed Hamas for a lack of headway in negotiations.

Neither of the two stipulations reported were in the “comprehensive” ceasefire proposal that US President Joe Biden announced Israel had put forward in late May.

At the time, Biden said Qatar had presented Hamas with the three-phase deal that includes a “full and complete ceasefire” in Gaza, as he publicly threw the weight of the US behind the proposal.

The proposal Biden outlined appeared nearly identical to the one Hamas agreed to in early May.

In the proposal, Palestinians would also be able to return to “all areas of Gaza”, Biden pledged, and 600 aid trucks would enter the enclave each day. This has been a key sticking point for Hamas and matches the text of the agreement Middle East Eye reported on 7 May.

Biden on Monday spoke to European leaders to discuss a ceasefire in Gaza and de-escalating tensions in the Middle East, as Washington and Israel have been bracing for an Iranian response to last month’s killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

The White House released a joint statement of the call with the leaders of Germany, France, Italy, and the UK, in which they endorsed a call for a renewal of talks for a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.

They “stressed there is no further time to lose”, the statement said.

The US, Egypt, and Qatar are scheduled to mediate a new round of ceasefire negotiations on Thursday, but The New York Times report says “the behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the Netanyahu government has been extensive – and suggest that agreement may be elusive at a new round of negotiations”.

The report says the documents’ authenticity has been confirmed by Israeli officials and other parties involved in negotiations. Netanyahu’s office denied to the Times that they had added new conditions but said they had “sought to clarify ambiguities in Israel’s May proposal”.

In May, Israel proposed that its troops would leave the border area between Gaza and Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Corridor, but the latest map shows that those troops would remain.

Another point of contention in the new stipulations is that Israel is insisting on an agreed-upon enforcement to screen Palestinians returning to their homes in the north for weapons – a demand they had “softened” in May to just stipulating that returnees should not be carrying weapons.

Opposing forces

The Biden administration has also consistently laid the blame for the ceasefire delay on Hamas, but the group’s former leader, Haniyeh, had for months blamed Israel for the delay in the negotiations. Haniyeh was assassinated last month while visiting Tehran, in what Hamas said was an Israeli strike.

Critics of the Netanyahu government, and Biden himself, have said that the prime minister is stalling negotiations and is not interested in a ceasefire or bringing a close to the war because it would end the deeply unpopular leader’s political career as he faces accountability for the 7 October Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel as well as a major corruption trial.

Netanyahu formed an alliance with several far-right politicians to secure a sixth term in 2022 and the extremist elements in his government are staunchly opposed to any ceasefire and want to permanently occupy Gaza. 

“I’ve urged the leadership in Israel to stand behind this deal despite whatever pressure comes,” Biden said in late May, adding there are those in Israel’s government who will oppose the deal.

“They’ve made it clear they want to occupy Gaza. They want to keep fighting for years and the hostages are not a priority to them,” he said. 

The end of the Gaza war and a more comprehensive peace process could also invite greater scrutiny over illegal Israeli settlement activity and a move towards a two-state solution – all issues that the extremists within Netanyahu’s cabinet are publicly opposed to bringing to the negotiating table.