Hamas Accepts Gaza Ceasefire Draft     01/14 06:14

   Hamas has accepted a draft agreement for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and 
the release of dozens of hostages, two officials involved in the talks said 
Tuesday. Mediator Qatar said the negotiations were at the "closest point" yet 
to sealing a deal.

   CAIRO (AP) -- Hamas has accepted a draft agreement for a ceasefire in the 
Gaza Strip and the release of dozens of hostages, two officials involved in the 
talks said Tuesday. Mediator Qatar said the negotiations were at the "closest 
point" yet to sealing a deal.

   The Associated Press obtained a copy of the proposed agreement, and an 
Egyptian official and a Hamas official confirmed its authenticity. An Israeli 
official said progress has been made, but the details are being finalized. The 
plan would need to be submitted to the Israeli Cabinet for final approval.

   All three officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the 
closed-door talks.

   The United States, Egypt and Qatar have spent the past year trying to 
mediate an end the 15-month war and secure the release dozens of hostages 
captured in Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered it. Some 100 Israelis 
are still captive inside Gaza, and the military believes at least a third them 
are dead.

   Officials have expressed mounting optimism that they can conclude an 
agreement ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald 
Trump, whose Mideast envoy has joined the negotiations.

   Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said at a weekly briefing 
Tuesday that the ongoing negotiations are positive and productive, while 
declining to get into the details of the sensitive talks.

   "Today, we are at the closest point ever to having a deal," he said.

   Hamas, meanwhile, said in a statement that the ongoing negotiations had 
reached their "final stage."

   The offensive has reduced large areas of the territory to rubble and 
displaced around 90% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million, with hundreds of 
thousands packed into tent camps along the coast where hunger is widespread.

   Israeli strikes across Gaza overnight and into Tuesday killed at least 18 
Palestinians, including two women and four children, while Yemen's Houthi 
rebels fired two missiles at Israel, setting off sirens and sending people 
racing into shelters. No one was wounded by the projectiles.

   A three-phase agreement

   The three-phase agreement -- based on a framework laid out by U.S. President 
Joe Biden and endorsed by the U.N. Security Council -- would begin with the 
gradual release of 33 hostages over a six-week period, including women, 
children, older adults and wounded civilians in exchange for potentially 
hundreds of Palestinian women and children imprisoned by Israel.

   Among the 33 would be five female Israeli soldiers, each of whom would be 
released in exchange for 50 Palestinian prisoners, including 30 convicted 
militants who are serving life sentences. By the end of the first phase, all 
civilian captives -- living or dead -- will have been released.

   During this first, 42-day phase, Israeli forces would withdraw from 
population centers, Palestinians would be allowed to start returning to their 
homes in northern Gaza and there would be a surge of humanitarian aid, with 
some 600 trucks entering each day.

   Details of the second phase still must be negotiated during the first. Those 
details remain difficult to resolve -- and the deal does not include written 
guarantees that the ceasefire will continue until a deal is reached. That 
leaves the potential for Israel to resume its military campaign after the first 
phase ends.

   The three mediators, however, have given Hamas verbal guarantees that 
negotiations will continue as planned and that they will press for a deal to 
implement the second and third phases before the end of the first, the Egyptian 
official said.

   The deal would allow Israel throughout the first phase to remain in control 
of the Philadelphi Corridor, the band of territory along Gaza's border with 
Egypt, which Hamas had initially demanded Israel withdraw from. But Israel 
would pull out from the Netzarim Corridor, a belt across central Gaza where it 
had sought a mechanism for searching Palestinians for arms when they return to 
the territory's north.

   In the second phase, Hamas would release the remaining living captives, 
mainly male soldiers, in exchange for more prisoners and the "complete 
withdrawal" of Israeli forces from Gaza, according to the draft agreement. But 
Hamas has said it will not free the remaining hostages without an end to the 
war and a complete Israeli withdrawal, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin 
Netanyahu has in the past vowed to resume fighting unless Hamas's military and 
governing capabilities are eliminated.

   Unless an alternative government for Gaza is worked out in those talks, it 
could leave Hamas in charge of the territory.

   In a third phase, the bodies of remaining hostages would be returned in 
exchange for a three- to five-year reconstruction plan to be carried out in 
Gaza under international supervision.

   Growing pressure ahead of Trump's inauguration

   Israel and Hamas have come under renewed pressure to halt the conflict in 
the lead-up to Trump's inauguration next week. His Middle East envoy, Steve 
Witkoff, recently joined U.S., Egyptian and Qatari mediators in the Gulf 
country's capital, Doha.

   Trump said late Monday that a ceasefire was "very close."

   "I understand ... there's been a handshake and they are getting it finished 
-- and maybe by the end of the week," he told the American cable channel 
Newsmax.

   Hamas has blamed Israel for the repeated setbacks in the negotiations, 
saying that on more than one occasion, the militant group had accepted a 
proposal from mediators only to see Israel reject it or launch a new military 
operation immediately afterwards.

   Israel and its close ally the United States have blamed setbacks on Hamas.

   Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the 
Oct. 7 attack and abducted another 250. Around half those hostages were freed 
during a brief ceasefire in November 2023.

   Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 46,000 Palestinians, more 
than half of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, 
which does not say how many of the dead were combatants.

   Strikes in Gaza continue

   Two strikes in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah overnight and into 
Tuesday killed two women and their four children, who ranged in age from 1 
month to 9 years old. One of the women was pregnant and the baby did not 
survive, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies.

   Another 12 people were killed in two strikes on the southern city of Khan 
Younis, according to the European Hospital.

   There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Israel says it 
only targets militants and accuses them of hiding among civilians in shelters 
and tent camps for the displaced.

   Yemeni rebels fire missiles at Israel

   The war has rippled across the region, igniting over a year of fighting 
between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah militants that ended with a tense 
ceasefire in November. Israel has also traded direct fire with Iran, which 
backs Hamas, Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthis.

   The Israeli military said it made several attempts to intercept the missile 
launched from Yemen early Tuesday and that "the missile was likely 
intercepted." It said an earlier missile fired from Yemen was also intercepted.

   Police said several homes were damaged outside Jerusalem and released a 
photo of a missile casing that had crashed into a roof.

   The Houthis, who captured Yemen's capital, Sanaa, and much of the country's 
north in 2014, have launched a series of missile and drone attacks on Israel 
and have attacked international shipping in the Red Sea. The Houthis say they 
are fighting in solidarity with the Palestinians, but the vast majority of the 
targeted ships have no connection to the conflict.