On Thursday morning in Gaza, Palestinian resistance factions handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross the bodies of four Israeli captives. According to Hamas, all four of the Israeli citizens were killed in Israeli airstrikes.

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has continued his efforts to sabotage the Gaza ceasefire and exchange of captives deal, Hamas has begun putting out substantive public proposals of its own. Hamas says it is prepared to negotiate a comprehensive deal for Phase 2 that would include the return of all Israeli captives held in Gaza “as one package,” rather than the staggered weekly releases that have marked Phase 1 of the deal. In return, Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups would require Israel to completely withdraw all of its forces from the Gaza Strip and for international mediators, including the U.S., to certify a permanent truce. 

Hamas also announced it would release all six living Israeli captives slated for exchange in Phase 1 on Saturday, saying it was evidence of the group’s flexibility and willingness to reach a viable deal.

On this episode of Drop Site News’s podcast, Palestinian analyst Abdaljawad Omar, an adjunct professor at Birzeit university and a writer based in Ramallah, joins Jeremy Scahill for a wide-ranging discussion on the state of the ongoing negotiations. They also analyze the recent meetings of a range of Palestinian political parties and factions aimed at creating a national unity committee that could administer the Gaza Strip if the ceasefire holds and reconstruction begins. Omar also discusses President Donald Trump’s threat to attempt to forcibly expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to build a U.S.-owned Middle East “Riviera.”

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