How Israel is responding to latest U.S. proposals to pause war in Gaza

Geoff Bennett:

Today, Israel said it accepted a new draft of a U.S. peace plan in Gaza, but Hamas so far has not provided an official reply. The deal would pause the war for 60 days, but not permanently end it, as Hamas is demanding.

Nick Schifrin is in New York now and joins us with more.

So, Nick, what's in this proposal and could it be accepted by both sides?

Nick Schifrin:

Well, Geoff, as you said, Israel has accepted this proposal, which would be a 60-day cease-fire of the war in Gaza. Hamas would release five living hostages the first day and five more living hostages after the first week. Hamas would also return the bodies of 18 dead Israeli hostages.

In exchange, Israel would release thousands of Palestinian detainees, including more than 100 serving life sentences. But this would not, as you said, end the war or require Israel to withdraw from Gaza. And those are the main sticking points.

A senior U.S. official tells me tonight, Geoff, that Hamas continues to demand that Israel and the U.S. guarantee that the war will not start after these 60 days, because Israel restarted the war after the last cease-fire, despite Hamas' expectations that the war would end.

There's another draft, Geoff, that would end the war and would release all the hostages. But this official tells me that is not something Israel supports and it's not the basis of the draft that we're talking about today.

Finally, this draft would also restart some U.N. food aid into Gaza, but not as much as Hamas wants.

Geoff Bennett:

Well, tell us more about that. How important is that humanitarian clause?

Nick Schifrin:

Well, it's incredibly important.

So this clause would allow more U.N. aid, but, at the same time, it would not end the Gaza Humanitarian fund, the U.S. and Israeli-backed initiative that, even today, once again we saw scenes of chaos, of desperate Palestinians trying to get boxes of food.

The U.N. humanitarian groups accused the foundation of having too few distribution sites and forcing Palestinians into inhumane conditions. The foundation says it's delivering aid to families and preventing it from being stolen by Hamas. But the need is great. An international umbrella organization says half-a-million Gazans, including many children, live with catastrophic food insecurity.

Even President Trump has described Palestinians as starving, and, this week, longtime Israeli ally Germany said these scenes cannot go on. But so long as the war continues, Israel's military vows to take over 75 percent of Gaza, pushing Gazans into small areas in the south, what Israel, Geoff, calls sterile zones.

Geoff Bennett:

And how is Israel responding to the cease-fire proposal?

Nick Schifrin:

As we have discussed multiple times, Geoff, Israeli society is split. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition has far right ministers who are threatening to resign if the war does not continue.

And Netanyahu himself is vowing to take over — quote — "all of Gaza" to eliminate Hamas once and for all. But many Israelis are demanding that the government prioritize the hostages, rather than the war. You see there some scuffled with police last night after they broke into the ruling Likud headquarters.

And thousands of Israelis continue to fill Tel Aviv's Hostage Square to listen to hostage families argue that diplomacy is the only way forward. Take a listen to Iar Horn, a former hostage and the brother of a current hostage, as well as Ruby Chen. Ruby Chen is the father of American Itay Chen, who was killed on October the 7th and whose body is still in Gaza.

Iar Horn, Brother of Eitan Horn (through interpreter): I turn to you, Prime Minister of Israel Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu. You brought me home. Do it again. End the war and bring back all 58 hostages.

Ruby Chen, Father of Itay Chen: Our fight is a global fight, meetings with leaders in the United States, Germany, Qatar and others. But it is also a domestic fight, a fight against the prime minister and a government that has decided not to prioritize 250 hostages kidnapped under his leadership. We call on President Trump to pressure Netanyahu and Hamas.

Nick Schifrin:

There are American and Israeli officials, Geoff, who do believe and tell me that if President Trump were to publicly pressure Netanyahu to end the war, Netanyahu would agree.

But, for now, until Hamas agrees to this draft we have been talking about or Israel changes its policy and agrees to end the war in full, the war goes on.

Geoff Bennett:

Nick Schifrin in New York tonight.

Nick, thank you for that reporting.

Nick Schifrin:

Thank you.