Experts discuss Gaza cease-fire negotiations as Netanyahu rejects Hamas latest terms

Nick Schifrin:

Netanyahu made clear the war would continue. He said Israel had so far killed 20,000 Hamas fighters, and the Israeli military operation would extend into the southern city of Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's 2.3 million people are now sheltering.

So, where do things stand?

For that, we get two views. Marwan Muasher was Jordan's foreign minister and then deputy prime minister from 2002 to 2005. He's now vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. And Dennis Ross was a longtime Middle East peace negotiator for both Republican and Democratic administrations. He's now a distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Thank you very much, both of you. Welcome back to the "NewsHour."

Dennis Ross, let me start with you. What is your reaction to what Prime Minister Netanyahu said in response to Hamas' counterproposal?

Dennis Ross, Former U.S. Envoy to Middle East: I think he really had two audiences in mind.

One audience was Yahya Sinwar, who is the head of the military wing in Gaza and actually is the person in control in Gaza. And the other audience was probably the right wing of his own coalition, where he's — he knows they're threatening to break the government if he looks like he's prepared to end the war or give in too much to Hamas.

So I think, for Sinwar, what he wanted to signal was, look, you're asking to end the war and you stay in power? No way. Not accepting that. This was Netanyahu's way of beginning a readiness to signal that he's going to negotiate, but he's going to negotiate hard. And I would say the Hamas proposal, counterproposal, is itself a kind of first counterproposal designed to produce a negotiation.

I don't think there was any Hamas expectation that the Israelis would accept something like this.

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