Hamas’ lead negotiator is dead. How can Gaza cease-fire talks continue?

Repercussions from the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, for which all fingers were pointed at Israel, reverberated Thursday, throwing into doubt when and how diplomats could end the war in Gaza.  

Israel has not yet commented on or accepted responsibility for the assassination early Wednesday in Tehran, which heightened the risk of all-out war between Israel and Iran and its proxies. It said Thursday it had killed Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif in a July airstrike in Gaza.

The tough question facing mediators and observers: How can talks continue if one side kills the main negotiator for the other side?

Mr. Haniyeh, who was given a state funeral in Tehran Thursday, was viewed by Israel as a terrorist and a planner of the Oct. 7 attack that killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage.

He was also the subject of an arrest warrant request, along with other Hamas and Israeli officials, submitted by the International Criminal Court prosecutor.

Yet to Palestinian rivals, Middle East governments, and many European diplomats, Hamas’ politiburo chief was a pragmatic moderate within Hamas, a figure with whom they could negotiate and prod the movement’s more hard-line factions.

At the time of Mr. Haniyeh’s assassination, talks seeking a Hamas-Israel cease-fire, most recently held Sunday in Rome, were at an impasse.

An Arab diplomat who requested anonymity confirms to the Monitor that talks are “essentially suspended” as of Wednesday evening and that relations between Arab mediators and Israel have been “severely strained” by the killing, hurting communications.

Adds the diplomat: The assassination “shattered the trust between Hamas and the mediators and between the mediators and Israel.”

Hostages’ families protest

The main elements of the proposed Israel-Hamas deal have remained unchanged for months: Hamas’ release of the estimated 115 remaining Israeli hostages in exchange for Israel’s release of hundreds of jailed Palestinians and a full cease-fire.

Earlier this week Israel reportedly added new conditions to a deal it had proposed with the United States; mediators had expected a response from Hamas by the end of this week.

Now, with a lead Hamas negotiator killed, mediators and families of the hostages worry that the talks may be derailed, or suspended indefinitely. 

Hours after the assassination, the Israeli hostage families’ forum said in statements that “true achievement can only be realized with the release of all 115 hostages still in captivity. … We call upon Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli government: Sign the deal you proposed and that was endorsed by President Biden.”

Hostage families shut down traffic in Tel Aviv Thursday as part of ongoing protests pressing the Israeli government to strike a deal.

“I can’t understand the strategy of assassinating someone who is in the negotiations,” says Daniel Lifshitz, a hostage family activist whose grandfather Oded is still believed to be held by Hamas in Gaza.

“On the other hand, this is a terrorist responsible for Oct. 7 and the killing of women and children. [His killing] does not help negotiations, but this shouldn’t stop a deal that releases the hostages and the people of Gaza from their suffering.”

Mr. Lifshitz and other hostage families are now pinning their hopes on Hamas bucking expectations and providing a positive response to the amended deal “to push the Israeli government into a corner.”

Mediators “undercut”

But Qatar, a key mediator and intermediary with Hamas, has openly questioned whether negotiations can continue at all.

“How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?” Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said in a statement on X Wednesday.

Egypt, another mediator, said in a statement that Mr. Haniyeh’s assassination “undercuts the strenuous efforts made by Egypt and its partners to stop the war in the Gaza Strip and put an end to the human suffering of the Palestinian people.” It “increases the complexity of the situation,” and showed a lack of “Israeli political will to calm it down.”

Fatah’s Democratic Reformist Faction, a subsection of the West Bank-ruling Fatah party, a Hamas rival, accused the Israeli government of “a calculated effort to derail the ongoing negotiations.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Mongolia Thursday, urged “all parties to talk, to stop taking any escalatory actions,” and “find reasons to come to an agreement.”

Axios reported that the Biden administration was “very concerned” the killing would upend talks.

Palestinian leadership

Noting previous Israeli assassination of Hamas leaders, Hamas sources say the movement will swiftly name Mr. Haniyeh’s replacement and focus on its war with Israel, in which more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza.

“The movement has not given up on its principles, be it in the war on the ground or in the negotiations,” one Hamas official in the West Bank, who wished to remain unnamed for security reasons, writes in a text to The Monitor. “As long as the war continues, so will we.”

According to sources close to Hamas’ thinking, the likely successor to Mr. Haniyeh as political chief is Khaled Meshaal, a fellow moderate who previously served in the role from 1996-2017.

Yet observers say Mr. Haniyeh’s killing may only strengthen more hard-line elements within Hamas, such as Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar and the military wing in Gaza – creating new obstacles for cease-fire talks and political reconciliation between Palestinian factions.

Despite bitter ideological divisions, many Palestinian faction leaders had good working relationships with Mr. Haniyeh. Last week he helped broker a cross-faction agreement in Beijing to form a new Palestinian national unity government.

“Haniyeh had very tight personal relationships with many of the Palestinian leadership, especially in Gaza; in many cases, friendship,” says Dimitri Diliani of the Fatah Reformist Faction, a “number-one enemy” of Hamas that worked with Mr. Haniyeh to bring humanitarian aid into the besieged Strip the past few years. “This helped Haniyeh forge meetings, understandings, and cooperation with many of the leaders of other factions.”

The assassination, Mr. Diliani says, served the Israeli government’s goal of fuelling “separation, confusion, and disarray in the Palestinian political system.”

“This assassination should push everybody to be unified,” says Mustapha Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative party, who took part in recent Palestinian reconciliation talks.

Warning that the killing was an attempt by Mr. Netanyahu to “blow up the possibility of a cease-fire,” he urged Palestinian factions to seize the Beijing agreement as “a practical road-map for unity” and present an alternative for Gaza before “time runs out.”

Insiders say Mr. Sinwar’s increased sway may harden Hamas’ position both in cease-fire negotiations and talks over a new Palestinian entity to govern Gaza, which, combined with Mr. Netanyahu’s hard line, would prolong the war.

“If it was in the hands of Haniyeh and Hamas’ political side in Doha, they would have closed the deal a long time ago,” notes Mr. Lifshitz, the hostage family activist. “Now it is in the hands of Sinwar and Netanyahu.”