Brett McGurk, who served as the White House National Security Council Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa during the Biden administration, published an article in The Washington Post in which he discussed Hamas’ repeated refusal to honor the terms of a ceasefire and hostage release agreement.
In his op-ed, published after Hamas threatened to delay the release of three hostages last week, McGurk wrote, “This week, Hamas once again showed why reaching a ceasefire deal was so elusive for so long: the group threatened to stop releasing hostages and to return to war with Israel. To many of us who served in the Biden administration (I helped lead months of ceasefire talks), this did not come as a surprise.”
“We have been criticized for failing to adequately pressure Israel to end the war in Gaza — a war that Hamas itself started on Oct. 7, 2023. But throughout the ceasefire negotiations, Hamas consistently held back on a commitment to release hostages and aimed to ensure it remained in power after the war ends,” he added. “These latest threats are part of the same pattern. President Joe Biden was right to stand firmly by Israel and demand the release of hostages by Hamas. And President Donald Trump is right to do the same.”
McGurk recalled the initial hostage agreement with Hamas in November 2023, explaining, “A US-mediated deal to release hostages in exchange for a ceasefire broke down less than two months into the crisis when Hamas refused to free young women it had agreed to release. Hamas then rejected continuing talks unless Israel accepted a permanent truce up front, with a return to the Oct. 6 status quo. Hamas’s Iranian backers reinforced the group’s demands as it continued to attack Israel.”
He went on to describe the Biden administration’s approach, stating, “The Biden administration concluded that the only way to realistically wind down the war was through firm support for Israel, while we worked on a ceasefire deal to release hostages on terms not dictated by Hamas, and sought to mitigate the humanitarian consequences of the war. Biden laid out our vision in a national address on May 31 of last year — a three-phase deal to free the most vulnerable hostages first, with the rest, particularly male Israeli soldiers, freed in a second phase after conditions were agreed upon. Those conditions would, critically, need to include a postwar Gaza without Hamas in charge.”
“While Hamas and its defenders claim it accepted this framework in early July, that is not true. Hamas reinserted demands for a permanent truce. And in those negotiations, it never — not once, even where nearly every other detail seemed locked down — agreed to a list of hostages that it would release if a ceasefire was agreed,” McGurk revealed.
“That was the situation during talks in Cairo and in Doha, Qatar, that I helped lead over the course of the summer last year. Hamas only engaged seriously on issues it cared about, such as Israel’s military positions during a ceasefire, or mechanisms at border crossings. It refused to engage seriously on the essence of the deal: the hostages to be released during the ceasefire. Nor did Hamas seem to care about the civilians of Gaza, whose suffering would be greatly alleviated by a stop to the fighting and the surge in humanitarian supplies that the ceasefire would enable,” he said.
“One of the hostages on the list Hamas refused to accept was a young American citizen, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who lost his hand while protecting his friends during the Oct. 7 attacks. On Aug. 31, Hamas brutally murdered Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages in a tunnel beneath Rafah in southern Gaza. I received the news of Goldberg-Polin’s death shortly after arriving back in Washington after a round of talks between Doha and Cairo. The news was devastating. And it again showed that Hamas had no serious intent to release hostages so long as Iran and Hezbollah backed its maximalist demands with ongoing attacks against Israel.”
McGurk also noted the eventual shift in Hamas’ position, writing, “The talks ultimately succeeded because the military equation across the region changed, with Hamas isolated and no longer able to count on a multifront conflict. Indeed, it was not until late December that Hamas finally named the hostages it was holding and began to engage seriously on the terms for their release under the framework Biden had presented in May. This change in position came not from forceful diplomacy alone, but also from force of arms across the Middle East.”
Addressing the recent threat by Hamas to withhold the release of hostages and Trump’s ultimatum for all hostages to be freed, McGurk commented, “Trump was right to call their bluff. The deal is the deal. And the formula today is the same as it’s been since Oct. 7, 2023. The only way to end this war is for Hamas to continue releasing hostages and accept terms for a future that might allow Israelis and Palestinians to live side by side in peace. That means a Gaza without Hamas in charge.”
“If Hamas cannot do that, even as Israel is meeting its essential commitments under the deal, then the war could restart. That would be tragic, but the responsibility would rest with Hamas,” he concluded.
{Matzav.com}