The U.S. push for a cease-fire and hostage-release agreement to be finalized this week, was prompted by the Biden administration's political considerations, two senior Israeli officials involved in the talks said on Thursday.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the region to advance an agreement although Hamas was not involved. “He was under pressure to create a sense of momentum and progress leading into this week. The timing was critical for them,” one official told me.
"That’s why Blinken proposals solved nothing and when the U.S. saw Israel’s position on a military presence along the Philadelphi Corridor, they realized it wouldn’t fly. That’s why the White House suddenly began pressuring Netanyahu on Wednesday—after Israel had accepted Blinken’s mediation offer. It looked chaotic because it was rushed, and it was rushed because it was political.”
The U.S. denied these allegations outright. However, a U.S. official who spoke with Israelis this week acknowledged that “Blinken’s trip wasn’t well-prepared.”
The White House hasn’t given up on the possibility of a breakthrough. The new initiative by the mediators involves establishing a mechanism to ensure that both sides fulfill their commitments. This could include deploying international observers to monitor the Nitzarim Route, which the IDF is set to evacuate, and report any possible violations by Hamas, such as militants moving northward.
Meanwhile, Mossad chief Dedi Barnea and Shin Bet head Ronen Bar have secretly arrived in Cairo on Thursday. According to CNN, CIA Director Bill Burns is also expected to participate in the talks in the Egyptian capital over the weekend.
In addition, The Wall Street Journal revealed new details about a sharp dispute between Israel and Egypt concerning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand to maintain a military presence along the Philadelphi Route to prevent arms smuggling to Hamas if a hostage deal and ceasefire are reached. This dispute now poses a major obstacle to U.S. efforts to advance a deal.
According to the report, Cairo firmly opposes any Israeli presence on the Philadelphi Route, which lies between southern Gaza and the Egyptian border, even a limited presence as proposed by Israel. Egyptian officials told the newspaper that the Israeli negotiating team recently suggested erecting eight watchtowers along the route. The U.S. proposed a compromise of just two towers, but Egypt rejected both proposals, arguing that any number of watchtowers would give Israel a military foothold in the area.
Egypt insists that an Israeli presence would violate the 1979 peace treaty with Israel—a claim that Jerusalem denies. The peace treaty limits the forces that Israel or Egypt can deploy along their border, and regarding the Philadelphi Corridor (which was under Israeli control when the treaty was signed), it stipulates that the IDF cannot station tanks, artillery, or anti-aircraft systems there.
The Egyptians, according to the report, also fear that agreeing to any Israeli presence on the Philadelphi Corridor would be seen as cooperating with the “Israeli occupation” of Gaza. The Wall Street Journal also reported that Cairo is demanding American guarantees that if Israel agrees to withdraw from the route in the first stage of the proposed deal, it will not return in later stages if the process falters. Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that the deal, in its agreed-upon framework, is supposed to allow the resumption of fighting in a second phase if negotiations for ending the war fail.
Israel, on the other hand, insists on a presence along the route, which is considered Hamas’s “lifeline,” because it doesn’t trust Egypt to effectively block the numerous smuggling tunnels identified there. The report describes a “crisis of trust” with Cairo, which officially denies the existence of any tunnels along its border with Gaza. According to the IDF, many tunnels have been found in the Philadelphi Route area, although it refrains from disclosing how many are still active on the Egyptian side of the border.