Israel-hamas Hostage Deal Talks Paused Amid Rafah Fighting

Talks for a hostage deal and cease-fire between Israel and Hamas have paused — in part because of the ongoing fighting in Rafah, according to two people familiar with the negotiations.

Hamas is still willing to negotiate a deal but has largely stepped back from the table because of Israel’s operation in the city, the people said. Both were granted anonymity to speak freely about the talks.

The people stressed that this does not mean talks have broken down completely. U.S. personnel are remaining in Doha to keep tabs on the situation and to continue to touch base with all parties, they said. And Hamas has told Doha that it is willing to keep negotiating.

CIA Director Bill Burns was heading back to Washington on Thursday after days of trying to negotiate with officials from Egypt, Israel and Qatar to seal a deal that would institute a temporary cease-fire and allow for the release of dozens of hostages from Gaza, along with potentially hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israel.

Burns was always scheduled to come back to Washington at the end of this week, one of the people familiar with the negotiations said. But his departure without a deal in hand raises questions about how the ongoing fighting in Rafah will impact the talks in the coming days.

“His departure does not connote the end of the current round of negotiations,” National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Thursday. "We're going to stay engaged in the hopes that we might be able to land something.”

It’s unclear when the formal talks between top leaders, including Burns, will resume, particularly as the fighting on the ground in Rafah shows no signs of slowing down.

U.S. officials had been pushing to reach a deal before fighting intensified even more in Rafah — which now appears unlikely.

Even before this pause, negotiators had been struggling to reconcile conflicting proposals from both sides.

Israel at the end of April presented Hamas with a new deal that would lead to the release of 900 Palestinian prisoners — 200 more than was included in a previous proposal. Israel also agreed to allow for the flow of Gazans to the northern part of the enclave — a key demand from Hamas.

That deal called for the release of women and children hostages as well as elderly hostages and those who are in need of immediate medical care. Under the agreement, the hostages would be released in waves. Hamas said recently it does not have 40 hostages that fit in that category, signaling that some may have died in captivity.

At an event at the World Economic Forum in Riyadh on April 29, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the proposal “extraordinarily generous on the part of Israel” and urged Hamas to accept the deal.

On Monday, Hamas announced that it had accepted a cease-fire deal, but Israel said the terms Hamas agreed to were far from meeting its demands and that the IDF would move forward with its operation in Rafah.

The Biden administration has for months pushed for both Hamas and Israel to agree to a six-week cease-fire with the hope that the pause in fighting would potentially be extended.

The broad terms of the deal have been on the table for some time — that Hamas would oversee the release of dozens of hostages while Israel released the Palestinian prisoners. Both sides also agreed to allow additional aid into Gaza.

But Hamas and Israel went back and forth for months on the ratio of prisoners to hostages and how much access Hamas should get to the north.

U.S. officials have previously said that as many as four Americans were still being held in Gaza. But details about their status have been scarce. It’s unclear if the bodies of those who have died while being held captive in Gaza will be sent out of the enclave as part of the hostage release.