I consider it all rumor until it happens, if it happens – and one of the many things we don’t know is whether it will actually happen. But here are some of my thoughts on the matter.

Because it has come to the point where any attempt at rescue will cause hostages to be murdered by their guards, the only way Israel can get hostages back alive is a deal. The deal was always going to involve the release of enormous numbers of terrorists. The only way that wouldn’t happen is if Israel had considered the hostages as dead from the start, and had refused to negotiate with Hamas at all. I don’t think Israeli society would have stood for that.

Plus, even though theoretically such a no-negotiation policy would have discouraged the taking of hostages in the future, it wouldn’t have discouraged it enough. Why? Because although one reason for terrorists’ hostage-taking is a pragmatic one – the release of prisoners – there is another big reason, which is to inflict suffering on the entire Jewish people. The terrorists are also sadists, and so that motive might be enough in and of itself.

Therefore I think some sort of lopsided deal has always been inevitable.

The release of a thousand prisoners may or may not end up mattering, depending on what Israel does next. It may be hard to believe, but Hamas has been recruiting new people lately. There seems to be no shortage of Gazans willing to die for the noble cause of wiping Israel off the face of the earth. Whether these particular thousand prisoners are released or not, the Israelis are in this for the long haul, and they have to figure out a way to improve the situation enormously or it will happen again and again no matter what they do. They absolutely cannot go back to the way it was before. And so what is most important – and what always was most important, deal or no – is Israel’s long-term approach going forward.

And what of the role of the upcoming Trump administration in any deal that may be made? Certainly they have exerted some pressure, but I don’t know the extent of it. Trump has motivation for a deal to be made before he takes office so he can claim victory on that score, and Biden has motivation for a deal to be made while he’s still in office so he can claim victory on that score.

I don’t think Netanyahu will sell his country down the river, and I have to trust that the Israelis have more tricks up their sleeves than we know about.

With all that as background, here’s an article on the deal:

Key mediator Qatar said Tuesday that a day earlier it had presented both parties with a “final” draft of the agreement. Israel’s Channel 12 news reported Monday that Jerusalem considered it broadly acceptable, and senior Israeli officials said they were waiting for Hamas’s reaction.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Hamas accepted the deal as well, citing two officials involved in the talks. However, CNN later cited an Egyptian official as saying the mediating countries — Qatar, Egypt, and the United States — had not yet received a response from the Palestinian terror group.

Hamas did say the ongoing negotiations had reached their “final stage” and that it had held consultations with other Palestinian factions and informed them of the “progress made.”

See what I mean? Clear as mud.

Details:

The three-phase agreement — based on a framework laid out by US President Joe Biden and endorsed by the UN Security Council — would begin with the gradual release of 33 hostages over a six-week period, including women, children, adults over the age of 50, and severely sick and wounded civilians.

Israel believes most of the 33 are alive but that some are dead.

In exchange, Israel would release many hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners. The BBC put the number at 1,000 prisoners, including approximately 190 terrorists who have been serving sentences of 15 years or more.

On Monday, Israeli diplomatic officials, briefing military and diplomatic reporters, said high-profile “murderer” terrorists would not be released to the West Bank under the deal, and nobody who took part in the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught would be freed.

Time will tell.