TEL AVIV — Israel’s Hostage and Missing Persons Coordinator Gal Hirsch has expanded the scope of the Israeli government’s ceasefire proposal to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
“I think we can provide safe passage for him, his family, anybody he wants to take. If (he) wants to take 10 people, he can take 10 people. Thousands is fine,” Hirsch told CBS News.
In return, Hamas must give up control of the Gaza Strip and allow the remaining 101 hostages to return, he said.
“The (hostages) will be rescued and the war will end,” Hirsch said.
Of the 101 remaining hostages currently being held by Hamas, Israeli intelligence believes 64 are still alive. Israel has insisted that both the living and the dead must be returned.
Sinwar has not responded to Hirsch’s proposal since Israeli negotiators first proposed a more limited version last week.
The Hamas leader is estimated to be somewhere in Gaza’s underground labyrinth since he launched terror attacks against Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people, taking around 250 hostages and sparking an ongoing conflict. The war in Gaza.
Israeli authorities say Sinwar was last seen on video they say was recorded by a Hamas security camera just days after the October 7 massacre. The grainy black-and-white image shows only his back as he follows his wife and children into a tunnel.
Sinwar was appointed Hamas’ general director on August 6, about a week after Israel assassinated Hamas’s longtime political leader. Ismail Haniya In Tehran, the capital of Iran.
Sinwar issued a public message this week thanking his Yemeni Houthi allies after a missile from the group landed in Israel on Sunday. There was nothing in his message to suggest he was ready to accept an Israeli offer of safe passage out of Gaza. Instead, he suggested that with the support of the Houthis and Hezbollah, a strong ally of Lebanon’s Hamas, he was ready to hold out for an eventual victory over Israel.
“We are preparing for a long-term war of attrition to break the enemy’s political will,” he said.
In an interview with CBS News, Hirsch suggested there may be some wiggle room on one of Israel’s key conditions for any ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
Two weeks ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was accused by Hamas of suddenly introducing new conditions into the negotiations. He allegedly moved the goalposts of the protracted talks by insisting that Israeli troops must remain in the Philadelphia Corridor after the war to prevent Hamas from smuggling weapons into the Palestinian territories.
For Hamas, a permanent Israeli military presence in the Gaza Strip has always been an impossible condition in negotiations.
Hirsch now suggests there may be room for a compromise.
“I work with hostages and missing persons,” he said. “Philadelphia Road is a very important asset to negotiations.”
Israeli military officials believe monitoring of suspected smuggling routes can be carried out electronically with the help of international partners, but no Israeli troops will be deployed on the ground.
Asked whether Israel could rely on underground sensors rather than troops to detect smuggling, Hirsch said the details of IDF deployment – which troops would be stationed where – were “part of the negotiations.”
“Philadelphia Roads, prisoners in Israeli prisons, humanitarian aid — these are all assets that can be negotiated to bring hostages home,” he said.
The war between Israel and Hamas
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