How Hamas leader’s handwritten notes are delaying a hostage deal

Exclusive: Yahya Sinwar’s strategy is aimed at dividing Israel and creating a rift inside the country in effort to drag out the war

Hamas is changing its hostage negotiation tactics, a move Israeli sources say is dragging out talks and piling pressure on Israel.
Handwritten notes, recent executions and last-minute amendments are making a deal even more difficult to land, sources close to the talks say.
The Telegraph spoke to four people in defence and intelligence in Israel, including experts on Hamas and sources close to hostage negotiations. One said the decision by Hamas to kill six hostages in a tunnel under the southern city of Rafah has made the latest round of talks “very complex”.
The security agencies, which run the negotiating teams, say the deaths have broken what they thought was a golden rule for Hamas.
“The concept was that the hostages are the holy grail of [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar and he would keep them alive, defend them with his own blood because they’re worth a lot in negotiations,” a source said. “And here, we see something phenomenal, they kill them and take full responsibility without even a blink.”
The killings halted any peace talks at the time but succeeded in putting pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israel prime minister,    for failing to agree to the latest terms.
They also triggered a major split with hostage families and senior national leaders in defence and security who want an urgent ceasefire.
In the week after the six hostages were killed, however, Hamas changed its demands on how many Palestinians prisoners it wanted in exchange for each hostage.
As the talks were prolonged by a row inside the Israeli government over withdrawing from the buffer zone along the Egypt border, Hamas changed its position again, something the US had hinted was happening over the summer too.
The back-and-forth between Hamas and Israel has been further slowed by handwritten notes coming from Sinwar, Hamas’s only surviving leader, who is thought to still be hiding in the tunnel network.
Since Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas political leader, was assassinated in Iran, Sinwar has taken personal control of negotiations.
“Every message passed to Sinwar is handwritten, passed by a long network of messengers,” the intelligence source explained as the Hamas leader evades detection.
“That means that as the clock is ticking, they are also making the process much more long-winded than even it was before as the low-level delegation being sent to the talks is not in a position to make any kind of major decisions.”
A military source said: “Sinwar’s strategy hinges on waiting for the cracks to appear in his opponents’ unity, believing that persistence will eventually lead to his advantage.”
The shooting of the hostages and the delays to negotiations has seen blame largely placed on the Israeli government, with protests growing ever more frequent and larger in size and scale.
Protesters highlight that Mr Netanyahu is holding up a deal by refusing to withdraw troops from the Philadelphi corridor, a strip of land between Gaza and Egypt where arms, money and people have been smuggled.
The prime minister’s refusal to change his veto on the corridor has also caused a rift with Yoav Gallant, the defence minster, and Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, something the that Hamas has taken note of.
One source said that Hamas executing the hostages and delaying further talks was part of a “new strategy to both divide Israel, and create a widening rift” inside the country.
“Hamas sees that every time they come with new demands, the pressure is on Israel, not Hamas, and now the blame is being laid at the door of the Israeli government every time anyone is killed in Gaza, so Hamas has found a new strategy to both divide Israel, and created a widening rift with Israel and the US,” he added. “This execution strategy could drag the conflict out for years with 101 [hostages] still in Gaza.”
Some experts believe it reflects a wider tactic to drag out the war and increase pressure on Israel internationally. The mounting civilian death toll in Gaza – which Israel says is due to Hamas using the local population as “human shields” – has left Israel increasingly isolated.
The change in tactics to shoot hostages is also based on practical issues. Israeli soldiers are now so deep into Gaza that they are regularly closing in on hostage positions.
“As soon as Hamas hears the footsteps of the soldiers, they kill the hostages,” an intelligence chief said. “The guards with the hostages are afraid not to kill them because if they just run away when the IDF is close, they risk being accused of being Israeli accomplices.
“They know that if Israel manages to rescue the hostages under their watch alive, they’re dead men walking, so instead, they kill them. It’s a huge problem as it means a totally new dilemma for Israel. For this, we don’t have any sort of solution and it puts us in a deadlock as whatever we do, it’s bad.”
The intelligence chief admitted that the protracted talks and changing tactics were “causing a big conflict in Israeli society and tearing us apart”.
Basem Naim, a Hamas spokesman, told The Telegraph that Mr Netanyahu is to blame for the delays, claiming he is “adding new conditions … backtracking from his own proposals …. or committing a new massacre”.
He also said the US was “totally complicit in the genocide against Palestinians and backing up the Israeli government”, which is also preventing a deal.