Israel proposed giving Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar safe passage out of Gaza in exchange for the group freeing the hostages it holds and giving up control of the strip, a senior official said, even as doubts deepen about the two sides’ ability to reach any cease-fire accord.
“I’m ready to provide safe passage to Sinwar, his family, whoever wants to join him,” Israel hostage envoy Gal Hirsch said in an interview Tuesday in the Bloomberg News Washington bureau. “We want the hostages back. We want demilitarization, de-radicalization of course — a new system that will manage Gaza.”
Hirsch said he put the offer of safe passage on the table a day and a half ago and declined to characterize the response so far. He reiterated that Israel would also be willing to release prisoners it holds as part of any dea Hirsch described the offer as part of an effort to come up with new solutions as prospects for a cease-fire look more and more dim. The US, Qatar and Egypt are working to present Israel with a new cease-fire proposal, but Hirsch said Hamas has so far sought to dictate terms rather than negotiate. It’s unclear whether Hamas would accept the proposal for Sinwar to leave Gaza, especially given Israel’s history of operations targeting operatives abroad. Israel hasn’t taken responsibility for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on July 31 in Tehran. But Iran has said the killing — Haniyeh was slain in a bomb blast at a Tehran guest house — was Israel’s handiwork. Adding to the stakes, Israelis see Sinwar as both the mastermind of the Oct. 7 attacks that triggered the Hamas-Israel conflict and a symbol of Palestinian armed struggle. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has done in the past, Hirsch compared Sinwar to Hitler. “In parallel, I must work on plan B, C and D because I must bring the hostages back home,” Hirsch said. “The clock is ticking, the hostages do not have time.” Further adding to doubts around the safe-passage idea, Hirsch vowed what he called a “Munich-type response” to target those who killed six Israeli hostages in late August. That was a reference to the years-long assassination campaign Israel launched after Palestinian militants killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany. “There will be a price for these murders,” Hirsch said of the recent hostage deaths. Israeli leaders have floated the idea of exile for Hamas leaders before. In May, Netanyahu told the podcast “Call Me Back” that the idea of exile “is there, we have always discussed it, but I think the most important thing is that they surrender. If they lay down their arms, the war is over.”