Hopes for hostages as Israel, Hamas, Qatar say progress in talks
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00:00 Joining me in the studio is Doug Herbert, our International Affairs commentator.
00:03 Doug, it appears we've been talking about this for days, but we do appear to be that
00:07 much closer to a deal.
00:09 Yeah, and look, the volume of promising statements, if you will, from high-level officials and
00:13 people, Annette, directly involved in the negotiations to secure a hostage deal.
00:17 We're hearing more and more from them specifically, but then again, everything has to come with
00:21 disclaimers here.
00:23 The families of the hostages have been disappointed before.
00:26 We've had false alarms in the past, which does not say this is one of them.
00:30 Look, we've been hearing for days, Annette, and the basic contours of what a deal is expected
00:35 to look like have not changed, right?
00:36 You would have limited pauses in the fighting between the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces,
00:41 and Hamas militants.
00:43 You would also perhaps have some form of humanitarian aid, especially fuel, which is in desperate
00:48 dire need in Gaza, being able to be brought in.
00:51 And of course, perhaps an exchange of a small number of Palestinian prisoners being held
00:55 in Israeli jails.
00:56 Those are the broad outlines, but like you said, the devil's in the details, like I said,
01:00 actually, the devil's in the details here, because there are these minor obstacles, as
01:05 the Qatari official, a foreign minister, put it the other day, and what is, actually, it
01:09 was the prime minister, and what are they?
01:11 They're things like Hamas wanting a total pause in aerial and surveillance flights.
01:16 And remember, the entire IDF operation, or most of it until the ground evasion, was all
01:21 airstrikes.
01:22 And today, most of the devastation we've seen in Gaza is due to airstrikes, that is attacks
01:27 from the air, Israeli aircraft.
01:29 So they'd like, perhaps, a pause in that.
01:31 But also there's the sheer logistical nightmare, that's the only word to use, of having to
01:37 round up, that is, get all of the hostages that would be released.
01:42 The numbers have varied, right, from 50 to 70 women and children, not civilian men, not
01:47 soldiers.
01:48 Round them up, find them, not just being held by Hamas, but presumably, perhaps, by
01:52 other groups, including Islamic Jihad.
01:54 That is no easy task.
01:56 So you can imagine how hairy that's going to be of a task.
01:59 And then the monitoring of compliance with the whole thing, as well.
02:02 The one positive sign is we do have the International Committee of the Red Cross, the actual president
02:06 of that committee, has gone to Qatar for direct talks, presumably to meet with the Hamas officials
02:11 and everything.
02:12 So like you said, to begin with what your question, that is perhaps the most promising
02:15 sign so far, that we are on the brink of something.
02:17 But of course, the Israeli ministers are going to have to vote on this still, and they've
02:22 expressed very public hostility to any notion of a ceasefire.
02:26 So that process itself is not going to be easy, is it?
02:29 To say the least.
02:30 There are so many moving parts and potential sort of obstacles when it comes to who will
02:35 sign off on this deal, a potential deal.
02:38 We know that the war cabinet itself, of which the far-right ministers of the government
02:43 are not a part, but Benny Gantz, Yoav Gollant, the defense minister, they're themselves opposed
02:49 on this issue.
02:50 You know, Benny Gantz, the National Unity Party, really in the camp that says, seize
02:55 the moment.
02:56 Let's save as many hostages as we can now.
02:58 Every moment that passes, every hour that passes, the equation becomes more difficult
03:02 to try to get those hostages out as the fighting perhaps intensifies.
03:06 Then the opposing camp, diametrically opposed view, Yoav Gollant, a lot of the Israeli intelligence
03:11 and security, military chiefs, sort of are in this camp that, uh-uh, you do not dial
03:16 down the pressure right now.
03:17 If anything, you intensify the pressure on Hamas.
03:19 You do not concede anything to them.
03:22 And this is really perhaps much more in the direction of the far-right ministers who would
03:27 also have to sign off, perhaps not officially on the deal, because the war cabinet is the
03:30 one that overseeing this war.
03:31 But we know that they are vehemently opposed to anything that smacks of even the tiniest
03:36 iota of a concession to Hamas.
03:38 We heard one of the ministers take a lot of flack from Netanyahu for suggesting just bomb
03:42 them all a little over a week ago, a nuclear bomb.
03:46 So that's the type of language you're hearing from the far-right.
03:48 And then there's also a question of whether the Supreme Court itself has to also sign
03:52 off on this deal.
03:53 There are a lot of moving parts here.
03:54 That said, when and if a deal were to come, my hunch is that it will be passed in some
03:59 way, shape or form.
04:00 Doug Herbert, thank you for that.
04:01 Thank you for that.