Biden Admin, Qatar, Egypt Propose Hostage Deal Where Israel Loses War

The U.S., Qatar, and Egypt have reportedly proposed a deal in which Hamas would free the remaining 136 Israeli hostages (or their bodies) in exchange for Israel withdrawing from Gaza and ending the war without destroying the terrorist organization.

The proposal, a three-stage process, was described Sunday by the Wall Street Journal, which appears to rely heavily on sources inside U.S. national security agencies.

Leaving Israel without destroying Hamas would defeat Israel’s central goal in the war.

The Journal wrote:

The mediators have proposed a 90-day plan that would first pause fighting for an unspecified number of days for Hamas to first release all Israeli civilian hostages, while Israel would release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, withdraw forces from Gaza’s towns and cities, allow freedom of movement in the strip, end drone surveillance and double the amount of aid going into the enclave, according to the plan.

In the second phase, Hamas would free female Israeli soldiers and turn over bodies while Israel would release more Palestinian prisoners. A third phase would involve the release of Israeli soldiers and fighting-age men Hamas considers soldiers, according to Egyptian officials, while Israel would redeploy some of its forces outside the current borders of the Gaza Strip.

Hamas is trying to use the hostages as leverage to avoid defeat. The Journal reports that there are rifts between Hamas’s leaders in Doha, Qatar, who are open to accepting a demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, and leaders in Gaza, who want to keep on fighting.

Israel reportedly prefers a two-week pause for a hostage release that would not stop the war and would allow it to pursue its stated objectives of destroying Hamas’s military capabilities completely, so that it can never threaten Israeli communities again.

The U.S.-backed plan appears to satisfy President Joe Biden’s demand that fighting be eased to reduce Palestinian casualties. It also appears to exploit emerging political differences within Israel about how far to compromise to free the remaining hostages.

There is frustration within Israel that the military has not yet been able to locate Israeli hostages who are in tunnels underground — though the IDF revealed on Saturday that it found an underground prison where hostages, including children, were once kept.

בהמשך להצהרת דובר צה״ל, מצורפות תמונות מתוך מנהרה בחאן יונס בה הוחזקו חטופים: pic.twitter.com/6CecbXLxrl

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) January 20, 2024

Though Israelis broadly agree that Hamas should be destroyed, and that a Palestinian state would be a disaster (a reversal from the view a decade ago), some dissenting voices are echoing Biden administration claims that Hamas cannot be totally defeated.

Netanyahu has dismissed such claims, arguing that Israel not only has the ability to defeat Hamas, but that it is doing so, and that it has no choice but to continue the war until Hamas is defeated, because otherwise Israel will not be able to restore its security.

The fact that the U.S. plan is also backed by Qatar and Egypt will not sway many Israelis. Qatar is resented for hosting the Hamas leadership in luxurious exile, and Egypt is increasingly suspected of having helped Hamas smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the 2021 e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now updated with a new foreword. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.