Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is sending negotiators into Gaza cease-fire talks on Monday with broad support from the Israeli public and backing from his government. He still faces a tricky balancing act of how to end the war and maintain his domestic political support, without giving too much up to Hamas.
Negotiating teams from Israel and the militant group will meet this week with mediators from Arab countries and the U.S. set to begin hashing out a deal to free the hostages still held in Gaza, the first step in President Trump’s 20-point plan for ending the war . The initial talks are expected to focus on hammering out Israeli withdrawal lines and logistics of exchanging Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
More complicated issues such as international forces taking over Gaza, who will govern it in the short and long term and demilitarizing Hamas are supposed to come later, after the hostages are freed.
But Hamas will want guarantees on as many of those issues as possible before giving up the hostages, its greatest lever over Israel.
That is where things could get difficult for Netanyahu. In discussions with mediators, Hamas has demanded a clear timeline for full Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza and a return to withdrawal lines from a January cease-fire agreement before releasing the hostages, according to Arab mediators. The group also objects to demilitarization and to conceding power to a Palestinian technocrat government overseen by a board governed by Trump.
Netanyahu has said that the Israeli negotiating team in Egypt will be tasked with working out the technical details for the release of the remaining hostages, and has framed the talks as separate from later stages in the deal. Israel wants to see all the hostages, both the living and the dead, released within 72 hours of an agreement, and for the talks to have a deadline so that they don’t drag on.
Even if the talks stay focused on logistics, there could be stumbling blocks. Exchanging hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners who have killed Israelis is particularly sensitive in Israel, especially to the far-right. It would mean releasing high-profile figures such as Marwan Barghouti , whom Israel jailed over his role in the Palestinian uprising known as the Second Intifada in the early 2000s. He has broad support among the Palestinian public.
Hamas is demanding the release of Barghouti and the bodies of its Gaza leaders , Yahya and Mohammed Sinwar, according to Arab mediators, a request Israel has previously turned down.
The head of the Israeli delegation, Netanyahu confidant Ron Dermer, is only set to join the talks later in the week depending on progress and whether Hamas appears serious, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Trump is pushing all sides to move quickly.
“I am told that the first phase should be completed this week, and I am asking everyone to MOVE FAST,” Trump said on Truth Social on Sunday.
Broadly, Netanyahu appears to have support to agree to at least the first part of Trump’s plan if it stays limited to a cease-fire, Israeli withdrawal and hostage-for-prisoner exchange. Far-right ministers in Netanyahu’s government have criticized the deal, but they haven’t threatened to bring down the government over it.
Israeli public opinion is also largely supportive of a hostage deal. Seventy-one percent of Israelis support the Trump plan, including a majority of Netanyahu’s coalition voters, according to a poll released by Israel-based Agam Labs that was conducted in October. Netanyahu’s critics, among whom are some hostage families, accuse him of prolonging the war for his own political survival, allegations he denies.
“For the time being Netanyahu doesn’t have a threat hovering over him,” said Yaakov Katz, a senior fellow at the Jerusalem-based Jewish People Policy Institute.
Breaking up the deal into two parts, with the first being the release of the hostages, is politically convenient for Netanyahu, as it puts off some of the issues that will be harder for his far-right partners to swallow.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have pushed for Israel to fully occupy Gaza, rebuild Jewish settlements there and encourage what they call “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza, which critics label as ethnic cleansing. By agreeing to Trump’s plan, Netanyahu appeared to put an end to all those possibilities.
Smotrich criticized a decision to ease the fighting in Gaza while the hostage release is being negotiated, while Ben-Gvir said his party would leave the government if Hamas wasn’t destroyed after the release of all of the hostages. Most polls show both men would struggle to maintain their current positions of power if elections were held now.
Some hostage families fear Netanyahu will still find a way to wriggle out of ending the war. “I don’t trust Netanyahu,” said Yehuda Cohen, the father of Nimrod Cohen, a 21-year old Israeli soldier who is captive in Gaza and who is alive, according to Israeli intelligence conveyed to the family. “I always said that he would have to be forced. As long as Trump doesn’t let go, it will happen.”
Netanyahu is likely to find himself in a familiar dance sooner than expected, as he attempts to balance the demands of his coalition, and international and domestic pressure to end the war.
“Netanyahu continues to play the balancing act that he’s played all along throughout this war,” Katz said. “Keep an open hand towards the deal, but never to the point that it also endangers his coalition.”
Write to Anat Peled at anat.peled@wsj.com and Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com
