Biden-Backed Hostage Deal with Unfathomably Bad Terms Nears Completion
In the everything-must-go fire sale that’s rather predictably characterizing the final days of the Joe Biden administration, it seems that one of the casualties will be the families of Israeli hostages being held in the Gaza Strip.
As you’ve no doubt heard, Israel and Hamas have agreed in principle to a ceasefire for the war that’s raged since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by the terrorist organization, according to CBS News.
The move marks a longtime goal of President Biden’s. Naturally, he won’t be around to implement it; that will fall to President-elect Donald Trump when he takes office next week.
To be fair, the Biden administration’s point man as talks have been progressing in Doha, Qatar — Mideast adviser Brett McGurk — has been coordinating to some extent with Steve Witkoff, the president-elect’s special Middle East envoy.
The administration has been drafting what officials have termed a “Day After” plan for Israeli withdrawal from Gaza — but that, too, falls to the incoming Trump administration to enforce.
CBS News noted that “officials acknowledge this plan for governance is aspirational” and that it would be left to the Trump administration “to help shape the future of Palestinian Gaza and pressure the Netanyahu government and Hamas to adhere to later phases of the deal.”
“Witkoff was in Israel over the weekend for meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Qatari prime minister is set to meet Tuesday with Mossad Director David Barnea to help finalize the details of the agreement,” CBS News reported.
“I think the pressure is building for Hamas to come to yes, and I think Israel also has achieved a huge amount of its military objectives in Gaza, and therefore, they are in a position to be able to say ‘yes,'” Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan said to the media.
However, one detail of the Biden-backed plan is getting some blowback online.
The terms of the hostage deal are ludicrous. Aside from no list of the living handed over to Israel, there’s an out for Palestinians — they can exchange dead bodies and still remain compliant with the terms.
AP News report of the terms, dated this morning- pic.twitter.com/WRl3piRoEd
— Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) January 14, 2025
Yes, that’s right: Hamas doesn’t have to produce living hostages to fulfill the terms of the agreement as currently written.
From an Associated Press compendium of the terms: “Which hostages and how many Palestinians will be released is complicated. The 33 will include women, children and those over 50 — almost all civilians, but the deal also commits Hamas to free all living female soldiers. Hamas will release living hostages first, but if the living don’t complete the 33 number, bodies will be handed over. Not all hostages are held by Hamas, so getting other militant groups to hand them over could be an issue.”
This hostage release is supposed to take place over a period of 42 days, which would see 30 Palestinian prisoners for each civilian hostage released and 50 for each female soldier.
It would also include a “halt to fighting” while “Israeli forces move out of populated areas to the edges of the Gaza Strip” and as “displaced Palestinians” begin “returning home,” with more aid entering the territory, per the AP.
In the second phase, the AP reported, “Hamas frees remaining male hostages (soldiers and civilians) in exchange for a yet-to-be-negotiated number of Palestinian prisoners and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip.”
It’s also worth noting the significance of this number. A Times of London report from last Oct. 7, a little over four months ago, listed 62 hostages who were missing but presumed living, as well as 33 bodies believed to be held in Gaza.
If one assumes that Hama is going to act in bad faith — not a bad assumption, given the group’s history — this means the exact number of hostages that can satisfy the first wave of releases could simply be dead bodies.
Even if the group does not act in bad faith, this isn’t a great augury, either. If Hamas doesn’t have control over the militant groups that have ravaged Israel and Gaza — and therefore doesn’t have control over the hostages — how can we expect them to fully carry out these peace accords?
In that way, the Biden-backed ceasefire gives the extremists more time to regroup and rearm themselves, completely undoing what over 16 months of conflict accomplished.
Whatever the case, allowing Hamas to neither give a full accounting of what hostages it has nor make a good-faith attempt to return them should be a poison pill in these negotiations. The fact that it wasn’t is indicative of just how far gone this poxed administration is — and why we should be glad it won’t be the one effectuating this agreement.
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