The basic idea driving the hostage-release agreement, approved by Israel’s cabinet early Wednesday in Jerusalem, is “more for more,” a formula that’s well known in arms-control negotiations. If Hamas delivers more hostages, Israel would be willing to extend the pause, a senior Israeli official told me. There is no cap on how long Israel might halt its Gaza operations, he said, as Israel seeks eventual release of all captives, including those in the military.
“If they use the pause to get more hostages and release more, then we’ll give them more time,” the Israeli official said. It’s a surprisingly pragmatic formula for easing a conflict that began with Hamas’s brutal Oct. 7 terrorist attack and continued through Israel’s relentless six-week assault that caught Palestinian civilians in the crossfire.
This account of how the deal emerged is based on extensive conversations on Tuesday with a senior Qatari official and a senior Israeli official. Both asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations. U.S. officials, who played a crucial role in shepherding the deal, praised the mediating role of Qatar and the support from Egypt.
Under the agreement, Hamas will win release of about 150 Palestinian women and children in their teens being held in Israeli prisons, in addition to the pause in fighting. Detainees on both sides will be released in groups over the four-day truce.
The deal — brokered by Qatar’s prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani — is a case study in how diplomatic mediation works. The channel was in part an intelligence operation, managed quietly by the CIA and Israel’s Mossad. Qatar, though blasted by some Israelis for sheltering Hamas terrorists, proved an indispensable intermediary. Over time, both Israel and Hamas came to trust the reliability of the messenger. A senior Biden administration official also credited Egypt for helping make the deal work.
As in most negotiations, the devil was in the details. The raw framework of an anticipated agreement was set on Oct. 25, two days before Israel began its ground offensive in Gaza. The ground fighting was a disruption, but talks continued. Almost two weeks ago, in Doha, Mohammed explained to me the hostages-for-prisoners formula. More delay ensued, but last week, a high-ranking Israeli official in Tel Aviv outlined for me the package approved late Tuesday.
“This is proof that dialogue works,” said a senior Qatari official during an interview on Tuesday. “It’s a first step. In all our mediations, you take small steps that lead to bigger deals.”
The trickiest issue was who actually controlled the hostages. Though the captives have often been described as being entirely under Hamas’s control, the Israeli official told me that, of a total of about 100 Israeli women and children — including toddlers and babies — Hamas had immediate access only to the 50 who will be released. The group can probably gain control of another 20, the official said, and if they’re released, Israel will extend the pause.
The additional 30 or so women and children are held by smaller factions such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, with a few held by individual families. Finding the others and gaining their release will be more difficult, but Hamas has an incentive.
During the four-day pause, Israel will allow delivery of fuel and other essentials to Palestinians who have been battered during a war that devastated civilian areas of the Gaza Strip. This truce might allow Hamas to regroup, but it could also ease the mounting international criticism of Israel that was beginning to threaten Israeli national interests.
Even if all Israeli women and children are freed, about 140 other hostages would remain. The Qataris hope that Hamas might gradually release those, too — perhaps eventually including the ultimate prize: military men and women. What price Hamas would demand in the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released isn’t clear.
Logistical details were a subject of intense bargaining. The Israelis insisted that children shouldn’t be separated from their mothers during the journey to freedom. Hamas demanded that Israeli surveillance drones not track its operatives as they moved among locations to gather and transfer the hostages. Qatar wanted an operations room in Doha, run with cooperation from the International Committee of the Red Cross, to help manage communications.
Israel stressed that Palestinian prisoners who killed Israelis couldn’t be released unless the victims’ families had 24 hours to protest to the Israeli Supreme Court. Even the level of humanitarian assistance going into Gaza was a negotiating point. Israel began allowing supplies of fuel and relief convoys into Gaza some days ago, but it held back approving more deliveries until Hamas agreed to all terms for releasing hostages, the Israeli official explained.
What Israel hasn’t conceded in the hostages-for-prisoners swap is its ultimate desire to destroy Hamas’s political power in Gaza. “We cannot allow Hamas to emerge from the tunnels, declare victory and rule over Gaza,” said the senior Israeli official. Toppling Hamas from power evidently remains Israel’s one nonnegotiable demand.