Israel’s spy agency, the Mossad, issued a joint statement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office Saturday saying Hamas had rejected a deal for a six-week ceasefire and hostage release, and wants more violence over Ramadan.
The rare statement by the Mossad appeared to be an effort to bolster the credibility of the statement, lest any statement by Netanyahu be perceived as political. The Mossad has been representing Israel in hostage talks.
The statement read:
Mossad Director David Barnea, yesterday (Friday, 8 March 2024), met with CIA Director William Burns in the framework of the relentless effort to advance an additional deal for the release of the hostages.
At this stage, Hamas is holding to its position as if it was uninterested in a deal and is striving to ignite the region during Ramadan at the expense of the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip.
It should be emphasized that the contacts and cooperation with the mediators are ongoing in an effort to narrow the gaps and advance agreements.
Israel’s assessment matched recent statements by the Biden administration, which — despite pressuring Israel to accept a ceasefire — has admitted that Hamas is rejecting the proposed terms. The Wall Street Journal reported that even the Qatari government, which has hosted Hamas’s billionaire leaders in luxurious exile, has grown frustrated, threatening to expel the terrorist leadership from the capital city of Doha if no deal is reached for a pause in the fighting in Gaza.
The Times of Israel reported:
The Paris framework, thus far rejected by Hamas, would see 40 children, women, elderly and sick hostages released in the six-week first phase, in exchange for some 400 Palestinian security prisoners, with the possibility of further releases to be negotiated.
Israel has said any ceasefire must be temporary and that its goal remains the destruction of Hamas and the return of all hostages. The terror group says it will release the hostages it has been holding since October 7 only as part of a deal that ends the war.
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An unnamed senior Israeli source close to the negotiations was quoted by Channel 12 on Saturday saying that Hamas’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar “believes that the more his [Gaza] public suffers, the greater the pressure on Israel and the better the terms he’ll get in negotiations [on a hostage deal]. A deal takes two sides, and right now the other side doesn’t want one.”
Contrary to American concerns about fighting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan which begins Sunday, Hamas appears to believe that war during Ramadan would increase outrage in the Muslim world and rally support for its cause.
There is growing concern about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with reports of some Palestinians facing hunger. There are reports that Hamas is stealing food aid provided to the area and selling it on the black market at exorbitant prices.
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 recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the 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.