Israel and Hamas appeared close to an agreement to declare a cease-fire in Gaza and release hostages held there, the Qatari government, a key broker in the talks, said on Tuesday, raising hopes after more than 15 months of war for some respite in the fighting.
The latest round of negotiations follows repeated failed attempts to reach a breakthrough. But in recent weeks, officials familiar with the talks have voiced hope that a looming deadline was helping to close the gap: the end of President Joe Biden’s term and President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
Mediators had “managed to minimize a lot of the disagreements between both parties,” Majed al-Ansari, the Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman, told reporters. The talks on Tuesday were focused on “the final details of reaching an agreement,” he said.
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.
But mediators, which also include Egypt and the United States, and other officials have warned that even substantial progress could be dashed at the last minute. Each of the previous rounds of negotiations over the past several months ultimately broke down in mutual recrimination.
“We believe that we are at the final stages, but until we have an announcement — there will be no announcement,” said Mr. al-Ansari, adding that there was no immediate timeline for signing a deal.
Mr. Trump has warned that there would be “ALL HELL TO PAY” unless the hostages were freed by the time he became president. Officials in the Biden administration had been pressing for a deal that would become part of the departing president’s legacy.
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.
A framework agreement had been sent to both sides, said Mr. al-Ansari, who said the talks now centered on “outstanding details” about how the deal would be implemented.
In a statement, Hamas also said that the 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 in Gaza for the emerging deal. Those commanders include Mohammad Sinwar, whose brother Yahya led the group before being killed by Israel in September. Communicating with them can be difficult, leading to delays.
It was still not clear whether Mr. Sinwar had conveyed to Hamas leaders in Doha whether he was on board with the proposed agreement.
The framework of the deal was heavily inspired by previous proposals discussed in May and July, said a diplomat familiar with the talks, who spoke 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, which was ignited by the October 2023 Hamas-led attack that killed around 1,200 people. Another 250 were taken hostage to Gaza, according to the Israeli authorities. In response, Israel launched a military campaign against Hamas that destroyed large areas 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 now believed to remain in Gaza, around 36 of whom are presumed dead by the Israeli authorities.
During the first phase of the cease-fire — which would last roughly six weeks — Hamas will 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 of the hostages are still alive.
Nonetheless, the Israeli official said that Israel and Hamas were very close to reaching an agreement. That optimism was echoed by Mr. Biden in a speech on Monday in which he declared that a cease-fire and hostage deal was on “the brink” of “finally coming to fruition.”
William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, and Brett McGurk, a senior White House official, have crisscrossed the Middle East, pressing for a breakthrough in the talks. Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s pick for Middle East envoy, has also made trips to Qatar and Israel, meeting with top officials there, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Saturday.
But 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 effectively leave Hamas in power in Gaza, allowing its fighters to ultimately regroup and plan more attacks months or years down the road.
Two of Mr. Netanyahu’s hard-line coalition allies — Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, have already denounced the proposed agreement as effective surrender to Hamas. The two far-right parties could threaten Mr. Netanyahu’s government if they withdrew from his ruling coalition in protest.
The agreement would likely still go through, as Israel’s parliamentary opposition has mostly committed to giving Mr. Netanyahu a safety net to secure a cease-fire and hostage deal. But it is unclear how long that would last, as it would leave Mr. Netanyahu’s political future dependent on rivals who have vowed to oust him.
In Gaza, Montaser Bahja, a displaced English teacher sheltering in Gaza City, said Palestinians were starting to feel hopeful that a deal could be imminent after more than a year of hunger and deprivation.
But even if both sides declared a cease-fire, many Gazans were frightened by a postwar future that was also far from certain, Mr. Bahja said. And even if Hamas’s deal secured the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, few would see it 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 to it end.”
