PNN – An American base Axios has announced a new plan to establish a ceasefire in Gaza for several weeks in exchange for the release of 36 prisoners.
According to the International group of Pakistan News Network, Axios, close to American and Israeli sources, quoted informed sources as saying that Qatari mediators have told Israel that Hamas has agreed to the “principle of resuming negotiations” on a new agreement to release about 36 prisoners from Gaza in exchange for several weeks of ceasefire.
In the previous ceasefire agreement, the Israeli regime extended the ceasefire by one day for the release of every 10 Israeli prisoners. If the Axios report is true, Israel’s agreement to release 36 prisoners in exchange for a ceasefire of several weeks indicates the level of pressure on Tel Aviv regarding these prisoners.
Axios reported this news, quoting three Israeli officials, and wrote that the officials in Tel Aviv are examining Qatar’s message with extreme caution and have said that they would like to receive more information in the coming days to know whether Hamas is serious or not.
In recent days, the Palestinian Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, has repeatedly emphasized that the resumption of any negotiations depends on the cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
An Israeli official said that Qatar’s message is still very preliminary. Despite this, he said that this message is “very positive, because after the completion of the previous agreement, this is the first time that Hamas has expressed its desire to return to the negotiating table. “We are moving from the complete freeze stage of negotiations to the cold stage.”
Another Israeli official said Tel Aviv had not yet received a detailed plan and was still waiting to hear more details. “But in any case, the differences are still huge,” he said.
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A Qatari representative and an official in the Israeli prime minister’s office did not respond to Axios requests for an interview. Earlier, the AFP claimed that a delegation from Hamas is going to go to Egypt on Friday to discuss the ceasefire negotiations.
Axios reported a few days ago that Israel has presented a plan according to which Israel will agree to a pause in the Gaza war for a week in exchange for the release of more than 36 prisoners. Israel had also agreed to release more Palestinian prisoners than the first agreement.
The heads of the CIA and Mossad, as well as Qatar’s prime minister, met in Warsaw in mid-December to discuss the proposal.
Last week, Egypt proposed a three-stage agreement that would eventually lead to the release of all prisoners from both sides. Under Egypt’s plan, the third phase of the end-of-war agreement included Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and the formation of a technocratic government in Gaza.
On October 7th, the Islamic resistance movement of Palestine, Hamas, in response to more than seven decades of occupation of Palestine and nearly two decades of siege of Gaza and imprisonment and torture of thousands of Palestinians, started the operation known as “Al-Aqsa Storm”.
This operation was one of the deadliest attacks against this regime. Hamas fighters penetrated into the occupied territories through the border fences at several points, attacked the villages and besides killing a large number of Israelis, captured a number of them.
In response to this operation, the Zionist regime launched heavy attacks against Gaza and put this area under complete siege. Despite this, as analysts say, the al-Aqsa storm operation has imposed a major security-political defeat on Israel.
The authorities of the Israeli regime have declared their military goal in this war to destroy Hamas. Meanwhile, many analysts have questioned the possibility of realizing this goal, even in occupied Palestine.
For example, “Ehud Olmert”, the former prime minister of the Zionist regime, wrote in a note in Haaretz newspaper a few days ago that Netanyahu himself knows that he is not able to eliminate Hamas.