Exclusive: Hamas Offered Major Concessions in New Gaza Ceasefire Proposal
From its perspective, Hamas has now presented its bottom line and if Israel won’t make a deal on these terms, it never will.
After a series of meetings with a range of Palestinian political leaders, parties and factions, Hamas formally agreed last week to a series of major concessions in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations, according to a copy of the framework obtained by Drop Site News. Israel has not responded to the proposed agreement for an initial 60-day ceasefire drafted by Egypt and Qatar. Instead, it moved forward with a mobilization of 60,000 reserve troops in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised will be a massive ground invasion of Gaza City aimed at ethnically-cleansing nearly a million Palestinians from the north of the enclave.
“Netanyahu's disregard for the mediators’ proposal, and his failure to respond, confirms that he is the real obstacle to any agreement and that he does not care about the lives of his captives nor is he serious about retrieving them,” Hamas said in a statement Wednesday night. “The Zionist terrorist government insists on continuing its brutal war against innocent civilians by escalating its criminal operations in Gaza City, aiming to destroy it and forcibly displace its people—constituting a full-fledged war crime.”
On Thursday afternoon, Netanyahu met with Israeli forces near Gaza. "We are at a decisive stage. I came to the Gaza Division today to approve the plans presented to me and the Defense Minister by the IDF for the takeover of Gaza City and the defeat of Hamas,” he said. Without indicating Israel’s position on the latest ceasefire terms accepted by Hamas, he said he had instructed Israeli officials “to begin immediate negotiations for the release of all our hostages and the end of the war under conditions acceptable to Israel. These two things—defeating Hamas and releasing all our hostages—go hand in hand."
Among the concessions Hamas made was dropping its demand that Israel withdraw entirely from the Philadelphi corridor running along the border with Egypt in southern Gaza. Hamas also agreed to remove language that would have prevented the U.S. and Israeli-imposed “aid” scheme run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) from remaining in Gaza after a ceasefire went into effect. Over 2,000 Palestinians have been killed seeking aid since the GHF took over distribution in May.
Additionally, against its previous terms, Hamas consented to proposed Israeli “buffer zones” already encircling Gaza that would extend deeper into the enclave, in some cases agreeing to points that stretch 1,500 meters inside the territory.
In July, Hamas agreed in-full with ten of the thirteen terms laid out in what President Donald Trump said was the final proposal for a ceasefire deal. The outline was drafted by Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer. According to the framework, Hamas would agree to release a total of ten living Israeli captives and 18 deceased over a two-month period. There are believed to be approximately 50 remaining Israeli captives in Gaza, 20 of whom Israel believes are alive. Israel, in turn, would free a large number of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, military detention, and other facilities. In its latest offer, Hamas agreed to a formula that would free 500 fewer Palestinians from Gaza snatched by Israel after October 7 than it originally demanded.
“There is no longer any room for concessions or futile negotiations.” — Dr. Mohammed Al-Hindi, chief political negotiator for Palestinian Islamic Jihad
“The Palestinian resistance factions have agreed to the proposal presented by the Egyptian and Qatari mediators—which is essentially the Witkoff proposal with minor amendments—and at its core, it is an Israeli proposal crafted between Witkoff and Dermer,” said Dr. Mohammed Al-Hindi, the chief political negotiator for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the second largest armed resistance group in Gaza, in an interview with Drop Site. “If the Israeli government now refuses to accept the mediators’ proposal—which is fundamentally their own—it exposes the true nature of the Israeli position, shielded by the United States, regarding the entirety of the negotiation process: using it for stalling and gaining time to commit further crimes. There is no longer any room for concessions or futile negotiations.”
Al-Hindi acknowledged that Palestinian negotiators find themselves in a difficult position, in large part due to the fact that Israel has a long history of violating ceasefire agreements and the only force capable of restraining Netanyahu is Trump. “The only party [Israel] truly responds to is the U.S. administration, which continues to provide it with cover for all its crimes. Therefore, the most important guarantee under such conditions is that the resistance remains fully prepared to confront any deception,” Al-Hindi said. “The resistance has shown flexibility and accepted the mediators’ proposal, because its priority is to halt the massacres against civilians and stop the killing through starvation.”
Since Israel resumed the military assault on Gaza on March 18, after it unilaterally abandoned the January 2025 ceasefire agreement, people in Gaza have been increasing pressure on Hamas to make a deal to end Israel’s forced starvation campaign and the relentless terror bombings. While Netanyahu has been facing increased domestic outrage over his refusal to make a deal that frees the Israeli captives, he has repeatedly sabotaged ceasefire agreements over the past several months.
“If there is going to be an agreement, then this is it. And if there's no agreement, then there would never have been any agreement,” said Sami Al-Arian, a prominent Palestinian academic and activist and the director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul Zaim University. “There has not been real pressure on the Israelis, certainly not from the Americans, nor from the Europeans or the United Nations and other nations in the region. So [the Israelis] basically are doing what the most extremist elements of the government are demanding to do because of the lack of any kind of pressure,” Al-Arian said in an interview with Drop Site. “Meanwhile, the Palestinians are paying with their blood. And the resistance is not about to surrender. If it has to fight, it will continue fighting as it has been doing since day one.”
In a call with Witkoff on Wednesday, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said he “stressed the utmost importance of Israel responding positively to the proposal and implementing its elements in order to address the current crisis, safeguard the lives of the captives, alleviate the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, and ensure that sufficient quantities of aid enter to meet the needs of the Palestinian people, who are being subjected to a deliberate policy of starvation.” He told Witkoff “to seize the current opportunity, with Hamas having accepted the U.S. proposal.”
In an interview on Australian TV broadcast Wednesday, Netanyahu said that Israel would not end its war until Hamas was entirely dismantled, whether a deal is signed or not. “We’re going to do that anyway. There was never a question: we’re not going to leave Hamas there,” he said. “I think President Trump put it best, he says Hamas has to disappear from Gaza. It’s like leaving the SS in Germany.”
On Monday, Trump wrote on his TruthSocial site, “We will only see the return of the remaining hostages when Hamas is confronted and destroyed!!! The sooner this takes place, the better the chances of success will be,” adding, “Play to WIN, or don’t play at all!”
Dermer, Netanyahu’s point man in the negotiations with Hamas, met with Qatari officials Wednesday in Paris and reiterated Israel’s maximalist demands that the war will only end with the release of all captives, the total disarmament of Hamas, full demilitarization of Gaza, continued Israeli security control over the territory, and the transfer of civilian administration to a non-Hamas, non-Palestinian Authority body.
In an interview with Drop Site last week, senior Hamas official Basem Naim said the Islamic resistance movement was prepared to make a fair deal. “I think there is a great political opportunity today,” he said. “President Trump, if he's serious about his promises during the campaign, he has a chance to do it once and forever.” But Naim maintained that Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza would not agree to lay down their arms and would only do so as part of the constitution of a Palestinian army capable of defending its territorial integrity. He added that Hamas remained open to a comprehensive “all for all” deal that would see every Israeli captive, living and dead, released in return for a long-term truce guaranteed by the U.S. and regional nations.
In the face of an ongoing disinformation campaign waged by the U.S. and Israel aimed at falsely portraying Hamas as rejecting demands that it step down from power in Gaza as part of a deal, Naim reiterated Hamas’s commitment to relinquishing governing authority to a 15 member technocratic committee composed of independent Palestinian experts. “The bottom line is to end the war, the total withdrawal of the Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, an agreed ceasefire, opening the borders, allowing aid to enter the Gaza Strip, and the launching of a reconstruction operation,” Naim said. “We have said from day one we are ready to hand over the government, or the ruling of the Gaza Strip.”
On July 2, Trump announced what he called the “final proposal” for a Gaza ceasefire and the next day wrote on TruthSocial, “Israel has agreed to the necessary conditions to finalize the 60 Day CEASEFIRE, during which time we will work with all parties to end the War.” On July 6, proximity talks—indirect negotiations through regional mediators between Israel and Hamas—began in Doha, Qatar. The talks centered around three central issues: how much aid would enter Gaza and who would distribute it; where Israeli forces would withdraw to during the ceasefire, and the size of a mutually-agreed buffer zone encircling Gaza; and how many Palestinian captives would be freed in exchange for roughly half of the Israelis still held in Gaza. Both Hamas and Israel proposed various amendments to the draft and began technical discussions.
That process came to a halt after Hamas submitted a series of precisely-crafted amendments on July 23. Hamas drafted the amendments to the original U.S.-promoted framework in consultation with mediators from Qatar and Egypt. The regional mediators characterized the Hamas amendments as reasonable and expressed hope that a deal could soon be reached. But Israel responded by withdrawing its negotiating team from Doha and the U.S. denounced Hamas, falsely claiming that it had sabotaged an agreement. “Hamas didn’t really want to make a deal. I think they want to die, and it’s very, very bad. It got to a point where you’re going to have to finish the job,” Trump declared. He said that Israel is “gonna have to fight, and they’re gonna have to clean it up. You’re gonna have to get rid of ‘em.”
An emboldened Netanyahu, who has made clear his intention to “conquer” all of Gaza, then announced plans to lay full siege to Gaza City and other population centers in an operation Israel named Gideon’s Chariot 2. The plan envisions a massive ground invasion and the forced expulsion of nearly 1 million Palestinians from northern Gaza. On Wednesday, Netanyahu’s office announced timetables for “conquering” Gaza City, saying the mission for “defeating Hamas” would be shortened. This week, Israel formally issued mobilization orders for 60,000 reservists that would participate in an invasion that some analysts indicate could involve 130,000 Israeli troops. “We have begun the preliminary operations and the initial stages of the attack on Gaza City,” said Israeli army spokesperson Effie Defrin on Wednesday.
“The threat to launch a full-scale invasion of Gaza City and the central camps will not be a walk in the park for a fatigued army and a fractured society,” said Al-Hindi. “And the fantasy of the resistance surrendering—regardless of framings or banners—is more far-fetched than Satan dreaming of paradise.”
Hamas’s Bottom Line
On August 18, Hamas informed Qatar and Egypt that it would agree to revised ceasefire terms based on the framework put forward by Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff. The structure materialized after days of meetings between a Hamas delegation headed by its chief political leader Khalil Al-Hayya, the director of Egyptian intelligence and regional mediators. Toward the end of the discussions, Egypt also hosted a range of Palestinian political figures and representatives of various factions to reach a consensus before submitting the proposal to Israel.
“We are awaiting the Zionist enemy’s response to the new proposal from the mediators, after the movement submitted its reply with approval—based on a national assessment and taking into account the grave humanitarian conditions facing our people,” Naim said a day after the proposal was submitted. “Anyone betting on breaking our Palestinian people so they will concede their legitimate rights, foremost the right to resist occupation by all available means, is delusional.”
As in previous drafts, the proposal calls for a massive surge in humanitarian aid, including food, medicine and other life essentials according to the quantities outlined in the original January 19 deal that Israel unilaterally abandoned in March. Construction equipment necessary to rebuild hospitals and bakeries and to clear rubble and reopen roads would be permitted to enter Gaza. It would also reopen the Rafah border crossing: Gaza’s only gateway to a world beyond Israeli control.
In the negotiations, Israel has sought to block the UN from being in charge of the aid distribution and delivery, though mediators have indicated Israel would accept language permitting the UN to be involved. In the original document presented by Witkoff on July 3 with Israel’s support, the UN was not even mentioned. Instead the draft said distribution would be done “in accordance with an agreement to be reached regarding aid to the civilian population.”
In the last round of amendments proposed by Hamas on July 23, its negotiators added a clause that said only international agencies that operated in Gaza prior to March 2, when Israel imposed a full spectrum blockade on Gaza, would be permitted. “The centers established by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, which were used by the [Gaza Humanitarian Foundation], will be dismantled,” it said.
The language in the new draft agreed to by Hamas simply states, “Aid will be received and distributed in the Gaza Strip through the United Nations, its agencies and the Red Crescent, in addition to international organizations operating in the Strip.” The term explicitly banning the GHF was removed.
“This is another attempt by the resistance not to have the other side sabotage the agreement,” said Al-Arian. “The principle of having the international aid organizations coming back and handling the massive aid that is needed is the more important point.”
Perhaps the most substantial concession made in this round was Hamas dropping its specific demands regarding the presence of Israeli occupation forces along the Philadelphi corridor. In its July 23 proposal, Hamas negotiators wrote, “The occupation will gradually withdraw at a rate of 50 meters per week from the Philadelphi route, and on the 50th day, it will withdraw from the entire Philadelphi route.” In the new version, Philadelphi is not mentioned at all.
A senior Hamas official and an additional source close to the Palestinian negotiating team told Drop Site that Egyptian officials had requested that Hamas drop this demand from its proposal, saying that Egypt would ensure an Israeli withdrawal from the corridor through bilateral discussions. Egypt has a peace treaty with Israel that includes restrictions on Israeli forces amassing at the border with Egypt.
“The Egyptians have assured the resistance that it is in Egypt's national interest, also national security interest, that they will compel the Israelis to withdraw. According to the mediators, the Philadelphia corridor would be part of the negotiations,“ said Al-Arian. He added, “I think right now what the resistance has shown is that it is willing to bend, so that in front of its people it has done everything possible to end this situation. The danger here is that the Israelis would interpret this as capitulation under military pressure and therefore they need to increase that military pressure until all their conditions are met.”
Israel originally proposed creating a cordon around Gaza that would effectively seize 40% of the existing territory. It also announced its intention to build a concentration camp on the rubble of the city of Rafah and force an initial 600,000 Palestinians inside its walls to await eventual deportation.
After Witkoff and Trump reportedly intervened in July to warn Israel against insisting on this as a term of a ceasefire deal, Israel proposed revised maps and Hamas countered with its own positions and the gap between the two positions grew smaller.
In the current proposal, Hamas agreed to allow Israel to extend a proposed “buffer zone” deeper into Palestinian territory in Gaza than the maps Hamas proposed on July 23. While the actual distances often constitute a difference of just 50 to 200 meters in the respective maps proposed by Israeli and Hamas, this issue has been a contentious one. Hamas has tried to prevent Israel from seizing even more land, particularly near residential areas, and to ensure that major roads can be rebuilt.
Terms for the Exchange of Captives
Since early July, Hamas has said it would agree to release 10 living Israeli captives, along with the bodies of 18 deceased. There are believed to be 20 living Israelis held in Gaza and approximately 30 bodies. According to the terms of the framework, eight living Israelis would be released on day one of a deal and the other two on day 50. The bodies of dead captives would be staggered over the course of two months.
In exchange for the ten living Israelis, Hamas said it would agree to a formula wherein Israel would free 140 Palestinians sentenced to life in prison in Israel along with 60 serving sentences of 15 years and higher. Israel would also be required to release 1,500 Palestinians from Gaza snatched by Israel after October 7. The terms also say Israel would release “all women and children” it is currently holding. For each body of a deceased Israeli returned to Israel, ten Palestinian bodies would be released.
This framework reduces the number of Palestinians Hamas said it wanted freed in its July 23 amendments. That proposal called for the release of 200 Palestinians serving life sentences and that those freed would be selected by Hamas. That language is now gone.
This could impact the fate of Marwan Barghouti, a senior Fatah leader and widely regarded as one of the most popular Palestinian political figures and a potential future president of an independent Palestine. He has been held in Israel's prisons since 2002. He was sentenced to five life terms by an Israeli court during the Second Intifada—a period of mass popular revolt against Israeli occupation. In a recent provocation, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir stormed Barghouti’s solitary confinement cell in Ganot Prison, threatening him and declaring that Israel “will obliterate” its enemies.
Hamas has prioritized Barghouti’s release in every prisoner exchange deal since October 7, despite the fact that he represents a rival faction. In January, Hamas fought behind the scenes to win Barghouti’s freedom as part of the ceasefire deal. Some reports alleged that senior officials in Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s inner circle told regional mediators as far back as mid-2024 that they opposed his inclusion in a list of Palestinian prisoners to be freed.
Hamas initially wanted the release of 2,000 Palestinians snatched by Israel after October 7—500 more Palestinian captives than stipulated in the new Hamas-endorsed proposal. In addition to the bodies of ten Palestinians still held by Israel to be handed over in exchange for each Israeli corpse in Gaza, Hamas previously asked for an additional 50 living Palestinians from Gaza held by Israel to be released. Hamas dropped that demand.
Hamas, with the backing of most Palestinian political factions, has stripped down its conditions for a Gaza ceasefire to the bare minimum. From its perspective, most of its “red lines” involve issues that extend beyond a temporary ceasefire. It has said it will not agree to demilitarize Gaza and that Israel must fully withdraw its forces. The new concessions from Hamas represent a shift in strategy, says Al-Arian.
“What the previous agreements were trying to do is to make sure that it would be very difficult for the Israeli regime to renege on its future commitments. So what the resistance has done in this agreement was to give up some of these commitments,” he said. “The Egyptians and the Qataris were able to bring the resistance to that agreement. And they have given assurances from their side that this would be followed with serious negotiations that would lead to the total withdrawal, the end of the war, the exchange of prisoners with a ratio that would be fair, and also the aid distributed by the United Nations. So some of these concerns have not been laid, but they are relying on the commitment of the mediators to make sure that the end of the war is going to be reached by the end of this process.”
“Frankly,” Al-Arian added, “I don't have much confidence, neither in the American and Israeli position, nor the mediators.”
If the U.S. does not compel Israel to accept the current offer from Hamas, which is filled with concessions, Al-Arian does not believe a deal would happen any time soon. “It shows that the Israelis never really wanted to have an agreement or what they wanted was for the resistance to surrender and for the war to continue,” he said. “The real aim of this process has never been the release of the captives or to end the killing and the massacres of the genocide. But all along it's been to occupy and to expel as many Palestinians from Gaza as possible.”
Al-Hindi, an experienced political negotiator who has spent decades navigating Israel’s decision-making processes toward Palestine, said that whether Israel agrees to a deal or not, the struggle for liberation will continue.
“As long as the occupation and aggression persist, the spirit of resistance will only deepen among the Palestinian people—especially as they witness the consequences of the Oslo Accords in the West Bank and Jerusalem, the settlement policy, and the burial of the two-state solution long before October 7. As for the threat of a full-scale invasion of Gaza, this would lead to a prolonged war of attrition,” he said. “True, our options are difficult, but so are all of Israel’s. When Israel buries the dream of a Palestinian state, it also buries the dream of a Jewish state. And so long as the Palestinian people are denied their rights, all agreements will remain temporary, and the region will continue to face more instability.”
 | A guest post by
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It must be completely obvious to the majority of the world, its people and their leaders, that every utterance of the murderous, Zionist regime is false; an outright lie. The “rules-based, international order” is a US sponsored fabrication, to be applied when the corrupt western powers say it should. America is a rogue state, Israel is a rogue state, and a majority of the European Union / Nato members, are largely the same. Death and chaos mean nothing to them. How much longer can this charade be perpetuated?
The settler-colonialists should release the 10,300 Palestinian hostages by them. They are being held in order to derive concessions form the Palestinians to further the goals of the occupation of Palestine. Also, every time a Palestinian hostage is tortured or dies in captivity or is released there should be heart rending interviews with the families of the hostages by the Western media.