Israeli negotiating delegation leaves Cairo due to differences with Netanyahu

Egypt – The Israeli negotiating delegation left the Egyptian capital, Cairo, returning to Tel Aviv a few hours after its arrival on Saturday, with the aim of completing the prisoner exchange deal talks with the Palestinian factions.

The private Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said that the negotiating delegation, which included Mossad chief Barnea, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, and Israeli operations coordinator in the Palestinian territories Major General Ghassan Alian, who left for Cairo earlier today, returned to Tel Aviv due to disagreements with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The newspaper added that disagreements between Netanyahu and the army regarding the deal talks were among the reasons for the return of the negotiating delegation as well, without clarifying the nature of these disagreements.

As of 18:25 GMT, Netanyahu’s office had not issued any comment on what Yedioth Ahronoth reported, but the office quoted Netanyahu as claiming that he “approved the broad outlines of the prisoner exchange deal, but Hamas tried to make changes to it in order to obstruct its completion.”

There was no immediate comment from the Palestinian factions in this regard, but they usually confirm their positive openness to a deal that guarantees a permanent cessation of the war, a complete withdrawal of the Israeli army from Gaza, a prisoner exchange, the reconstruction of the Strip after the end of the war, and the provision of relief to the Gazans.

Earlier on Saturday, the Israeli negotiating delegation arrived in Cairo.

The delegation’s arrival in Cairo came after talks in Cairo held by US Presidential Senior Advisor Brett McGurk with Egyptian General Intelligence Chief Abbas Kamel and other officials, where he “convinced them to hold the meeting with the Israeli delegation,” according to the same source.

McGurk also asked the heads of the Shin Bet and Mossad to come to Cairo, despite Hamas’s rejection of Netanyahu’s new conditions for the deal.

This comes as neither the Egyptian nor Qatari mediators nor the factions movement have issued any comment regarding the resumption of negotiations for a prisoner exchange deal, especially since the assassination of the head of the political bureau of the factions movement, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran at dawn on Wednesday, cast negative shadows on the possibility of this.

On Wednesday, Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman said, “The approach of political assassinations and escalation in Gaza raises questions about how negotiations can be conducted in which one party kills the party negotiating with it.”

At the beginning of last June, US President Joe Biden presented the terms of a deal offered to him by Israel “to stop the fighting and release all the kidnapped,” and the factions movement accepted it at the time, according to Hebrew media.

But Netanyahu added new conditions that both Defense Minister Yoav Galant and the head of Mossad considered would hinder the deal.

These conditions included preventing the return of what he called “Palestinian militants” from the south of the Gaza Strip to its north by inspecting returnees at the Netanzarim axis, which the Israeli army established near Gaza City and separates the north of the Strip from its south, and the Israeli army remaining at the Philadelphi axis on the border between Gaza and Egypt, which it announced its control over on May 29.

On Friday evening, the private Hebrew Channel 12 reported that Netanyahu had quarreled with the heads of the Shin Bet and Mossad and the official in charge of the “kidnapped file” in the Israeli army, Major General Nitzan Alon, on Wednesday, accusing them of being “weak” and “working for the head of the factions’ movement in Gaza.”

Two senior US officials told the private Hebrew website Walla that President Joe Biden had a “difficult” phone call with Netanyahu on Thursday, asking him to avoid further escalation of tensions in the region and instead move toward an agreement to exchange prisoners and a ceasefire in Gaza.

The website quoted one of these officials, without naming them, as saying, “Biden told Netanyahu that they had spoken only last week in the Oval Office about making progress in the deal for the kidnapped soldiers (Israeli prisoners in Gaza), but instead Netanyahu decided to order the assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran.”

The US official said, “Biden told Netanyahu that the United States would help Israel repel a potential Iranian attack, but then demanded that there be no further escalation on the Israeli side, and that Netanyahu immediately move forward with the deal with the factions movement.”

Both the factions’ movement and Iran vowed to respond to Haniyeh’s assassination, while international contacts and efforts to calm the situation continue for fear of the conflict expanding in the region.

Anatolia