Hamas is “very close to an agreement” with Israel for a ceasefire in Gaza and the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners, according to an official from the militant group.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Monday that there had been progress in negotiations.
“Israel wants a hostage deal. Israel is working with our American friends in order to achieve a hostage deal, and soon we will know whether the other side wants the same thing,” Saar said in a news conference in Jerusalem.
Several sticking points remain in the ongoing negotiations being hosted in the Qatari capital of Doha, however, the Hamas official told CNN.
They include Hamas’ demands that Israel withdraw from the Philadelphi corridor, a narrow strip of land along the Egypt-Gaza border, and commit to a permanent ceasefire rather than a temporary halt to the military operations launched in the wake of the Hamas October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.
Disagreement also remains over an Israeli-proposed buffer zone inside Gaza to run along the strip’s eastern and northern borders with Israel. The official said that Hamas wants the buffer zone to return to the pre-October 7 size of 300-500 meters (330-545 yards) from the border line, while Israel is requesting a much larger 2,000-meter depth.
“We believe this means that 60 km (37 miles) of the Gaza Strip will remain under their control, and displaced people will not return to their homes,” the official said.
Beyond those key demands, the official said that negotiators were hammering out specific details of the release of Palestinian prisoners and maps covering the areas from which Israeli forces would withdraw.
Qadura Fares, the head of the Palestinian Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees, told CNN separately on Monday that he is traveling to Doha to advise negotiators on the list of detainees to be released “in the event the deal materializes.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with US President Joe Biden on Sunday, their first publicly announced call since October, about the progress in negotiations.
Netanyahu, who met with President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, on Saturday, is facing pressure from both the current and incoming US administrations to reach a deal.
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Monday that the potential ceasefire-hostage deal would be a “catastrophe” for Israel’s national security. In a post on X, Smotrich described it as a “surrender deal” that would include releasing “terrorists” and “dissolving” the war’s achievements.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday that while reaching a deal by January 20 is “possible,” he “cannot make any predictions.”
“We are very, very close, and yet being very close still means we’re far, because until you actually get across the finish line, we’re not there,” Sullivan said.
CNN’s Mike Schwartz and Nadeen Ebrahim contributed to this report.
