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Benjamin Netanyahu signals readiness for talks on second phase by appointing adviser Ron Dermer to lead delegation
Hamas has said it is ready to release all its remaining hostages in a single exchange if the ceasefire agreement with Israel moves forward to a second phase next month.
The offer came as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, signalled his readiness to talk about a second phase of the Gaza ceasefire after an extended delay, by appointing one of his closest advisers, Ron Dermer, a US-born cabinet minister and former ambassador to Washington, to lead the Israeli delegation to the talks.
Dermer replaces the heads of the Mossad and the Shin Bet security service, who have led the negotiations until now and have frequently been at odds with Netanyahu over his reluctance to move forward with the ceasefire.
In the final steps of the first phase, Hamas will hand over the bodies of four Israeli hostages on Thursday, including those of two young boys from the same family. The group will release six hostages on Sunday and then transfer four more bodies next Thursday.
That will complete the first six-week phase of the ceasefire, due to end on 1 March, leaving a further 58 hostages in the hands of Hamas and allied militant groups in Gaza. Israel believes that 34 of the remaining hostages are dead.
The agreed plan for the second phase was for hostages and bodies of the dead to be exchanged for Palestinian detainees and prisoners in staggered groups. But Hamas suggested on Wednesday it was prepared to accelerate the process.
A senior Hamas official told Agence France-Presse that the group was ready to release all remaining hostages in one handover during the second phase.
The official, Taher al-Nunu, said: “We have informed the mediators that Hamas is ready to release all hostages in one batch during the second phase of the agreement, rather than in stages, as in the current first phase.”
Netanyahu has long resisted any talk about the second phase of the agreement, which would involve a complete military withdrawal from Gaza, as well as the handover of the remaining hostages, in return for hundreds more Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
Completion of the second phase would in effect represent the end of the war, but the far-right wing of Netanyahu’s coalition adamantly opposes such a step if it leaves Hamas as a significant force inside Gaza.
The Israeli prime minister, however, has come under pressure to do so from Donald Trump’s special envoy, the US president’s friend and fellow real-estate developer, Steve Witkoff, who said over the weekend: “Phase two is absolutely going to begin.”
Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, said on Tuesday that talks on the second phase would begin this week, but a day later the timing remained unclear.
Under the original agreement, talks over how the second phase would be implemented were supposed to begin at the beginning of February. Not much time now remains before phase two is due to begin on 1 March, and there are contentious issues to be resolved.
Under the agreement, Israeli troops are due to withdraw from the Philadelphi corridor, a buffer running along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, in the first eight days of phase two. That is something the Israeli prime minister has previously refused to do, emphasising the corridor’s strategic importance.
At the same time, Netanyahu is demanding that the second phase include the disarming of Hamas and its removal as an organisation, but he has been hazy about who would replace them in running the territory. He embraced Trump’s declaration earlier this week that the US would take control of the Gaza Strip and that the entire Palestinian population of more than 2.2 million would somehow be moved out of their homeland.
Few in the region believe Trump’s proposal will be carried out. On Wednesday, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) joined Egypt and Jordan in opposing the plan, which would require the cooperation of neighbouring countries to absorb the deported Palestinians.
There was no official account of a meeting between the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the UAE leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. However, a state-linked newspaper, the National, later reported that Mohammed had told Rubio: “The UAE strongly opposes any attempt to displace the Palestinian people from Gaza.”
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