Israel and Hamas Near Agreement on Cease-Fire Deal, Qatar Says

The negotiations, mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, appear to be making progress after months of failed attempts to achieve a breakthrough.

Israel and Hamas are “on the brink” of agreeing on a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages held there, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Tuesday, raising hopes for some respite to the violence after more than 15 months of war.

“It’s right on the brink, it’s closer than it’s ever been before,” Mr. Blinken said at an Atlantic Council event in Washington. “But right now as we sit here we await final word from Hamas on its acceptance. And until we get that word, we’ll remain on the brink.”

A person familiar with the negotiations said Tuesday evening that Israel and Hamas had been locked in on the deal, with both appearing prepared to publicly accept it in the very near future. The person, who requested anonymity because a deal had not been announced, said the atmosphere was tense but hopeful.

Neither Israeli nor Hamas officials have publicly confirmed their position on the cease-fire proposal, although Mr. Blinken suggested that Israel was on board with the agreement and that the deal’s fate now rested with Hamas.

Negotiators said Hamas seemed ready to accept the deal, including its details about the exchange of Palestinian prisoners for hostages, and the specific movements of Israeli troops as they withdraw from positions in Gaza, according to the person familiar with the discussions.

But the person cautioned that the agreement has more than 100 separate parts and that no diplomatic deal of that complexity can ever be considered completely done until the parties announce it publicly.

U.S. officials have made optimistic remarks about cease-fire talks in the past. only for negotiations to repeatedly break down into mutual recrimination. And representatives of other mediating countries, including Qatar and Egypt, have warned that even substantial progress could be dashed at the last minute.

“We believe that we are at the final stages, but until we have an announcement — there will be no announcement,” Majed al-Ansari, the spokesman for Qatar’s foreign ministry, told reporters on Tuesday.

Still, in recent weeks officials familiar with the talks have expressed greater hope for a deal. Mediators had “managed to minimize a lot of the disagreements between both parties,” Mr. al-Ansari said, adding that they were focused on “the final details of reaching an agreement.”

Officials in both the Israeli government and Hamas have suggested that they are ready to move forward if the other side signs off. On Monday, a Hamas official said a deal was possible in the coming days as long as Israel did not suddenly change its positions. On Tuesday, an Israeli official said Israel was ready to close the deal and was waiting for Hamas to make a decision.

Some officials have also suggested that a looming deadline had helped close the gap: the end of President Biden’s term and President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. That deadline helped negotiators put pressure on both Israel and Hamas to accelerate their decision-making after months of agonizing delay.

Mr. Trump has warned that there will be “all hell to pay” unless the hostages are freed by the time he becomes president. Steve Witkoff, his pick for Middle East envoy, has also made trips to Qatar and Israel, meeting with top officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

American officials have said Mr. Witkoff has been an important and supportive player in the cease-fire talks. He has not been involved in the intricate details of the deal, according to the person familiar with the negotiations. But he has made it clear to all of the parties that Mr. Trump wants a deal completed immediately.

They have also said that the momentum for a deal with Hamas accelerated after Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah reached their own cease-fire deal in late November. That agreement helped isolate Hamas, according to the person familiar with the negotiations, who said discussions became more productive at that point.

If Hamas and Israel conclude an agreement, it would bring some relief to Palestinians in Gaza, who have endured miserable conditions in displacement camps and relentless bombardments by Israel, and for the families of hostages abducted from Israel, who have worried for more than a year about the fate of their loved ones.

“I pray this time the return is real,” said Manar Silmi, 34, a psychologist who hopes to return to the Gaza City home she fled early in the war. “We’ve suffered more than enough.”

In a statement, Hamas said negotiations “had reached their final stages.” The Palestinian armed group’s leadership “hoped that this round of talks would end with a complete and clear agreement,” Hamas said.

Hamas officials negotiating in Doha must obtain the consent of the group’s remaining military commanders inside Gaza for the deal. But communicating with them can be difficult, as they are mostly believed to be in hiding, often leading to delays. They include Mohammad Sinwar, whose brother Yahya led the group before being killed by Israel.

It was still not clear whether Mr. Sinwar had conveyed his position toward the cease-fire proposal to Hamas leaders in Doha.

The framework of the deal was heavily inspired by previous proposals discussed in May and July, said a diplomat familiar with the talks, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the volatile negotiations. Those proposals detailed a three-stage cease-fire in which Israeli troops would gradually withdraw from Gaza, as Hamas released hostages in exchange for Palestinians jailed by Israel.

For over a year, international efforts have failed to end the war set off by the Hamas-led attack that killed around 1,200 people in October 2023. Another 250 people were taken hostage to Gaza, according to the Israeli authorities.

In response, Israel launched a military campaign against Hamas that has destroyed much of the enclave and killed at least 45,000 people, according to Gaza health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Around 105 hostages were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November 2023. The bodies of others were recovered by Israeli troops, and a handful were rescued alive. Roughly 98 hostages are believed to remain in Gaza, around 36 of whom are presumed dead by the Israeli authorities.

During the first phase of the proposed cease-fire — which would last about six weeks — Hamas would release 33 named hostages, most of whom Israel believes are alive, said an Israeli official, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks. Israel is willing to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange, the official said, but the number depends on how many hostages are still alive.

Eli Albag, whose daughter Liri, 19, was abducted from the military base where she served during the Hamas-led attack, met with Mr. Netanyahu on Tuesday evening alongside other relatives of hostages.

Mr. Netanyahu projected optimism, Mr. Albag said. But he said he still found it hard to think about what it might be like to welcome his daughter home.

“We want to see the deal signed first,” he said. “After that, we’ll make room for other thoughts.”

While there is significant public pressure in Israel to reach a deal to free the hostages, many Israelis also fear that a cease-fire would leave Hamas in power in Gaza, allowing it to regroup and plan more attacks.

Two of Mr. Netanyahu’s hard-line coalition allies — Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich — have already denounced the proposed agreement as an effective surrender to Hamas. Their two far-right parties could threaten Mr. Netanyahu’s government if they were to withdraw from his ruling coalition over their opposition to a deal.

But were the lawmakers to press a no-confidence vote in Parliament, they would likely struggle to immediately topple Mr. Netanyahu’s government. Opposition parties have broadly committed to propping up Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition, if necessary, to secure the implementation of an agreement that would free the hostages.

In Gaza, Montaser Bahja, a displaced English teacher sheltering in Gaza City, said Palestinians were starting to feel hopeful about a deal after more than a year of hunger and deprivation.

But even if both sides declared a cease-fire, many Gazans were frightened by their uncertain postwar future, Mr. Bahja said. And even if Hamas’s deal secured the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, few would see that as an achievement given the scale of the death and devastation in Gaza, he added.

“Everything is up in the air,” he said. “At this point, people just want it to end.”

Ismaeel Naar and Edward Wong contributed reporting.