As negotiations with Hamas stall, Israel and the United States are now aligned on aiming for a comprehensive framework in place of a partial ceasefire and hostage-release deal, a senior Israeli official told reporters during a Thursday briefing.
“There will be no more partial deals,” the official was quoted as saying, explaining that Israel and the US now concur on the need to “shift from a framework for the release of some of the hostages to a framework for the release of all of the hostages, the disarmament of Hamas and the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.”
If actualized, it would mark a massive shift for Israel, which came up with the phased hostage deal framework during the first year of the war, as it enabled Israel to secure the release of some of its hostages, while maintaining the ability to resume the war — something Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needed in order to maintain his coalition, as far-right partners threatened to collapse the government if Israel agreed to a permanent ceasefire.
Hamas, for its part, has offered the release of all remaining hostages in exchange for an end to the war, while rejecting calls to disarm. Netanyahu has also argued that prematurely ending the war would leave Hamas in power and able to regroup.
The potential shift in Israel’s approach came amid the latest impasse in hostage talks, which have largely stalled since Israel and the US pulled their negotiators from Doha last week due to frustration with Hamas’s response to the most recent phased ceasefire proposal.
In exchange for forgoing its demand for an up front Israeli commitment to end the war, Hamas sought to limit the scope of Israel’s presence in Gaza during the 60-day truce under discussion, while also increasing the number of prisoners it wants in exchange for the 28 of the 50 remaining hostages who will be released through the agreement — conditions that were rejected by Israel.
Maryam, a 26-year-old Palestinian mother, holds the hand of her malnourished 40-day-old son Mahmoud as they await treatment at the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on July 24, 2025. (AFP)
On Thursday, an Arab diplomat and a second source involved in mediation efforts told The Times of Israel that Hamas negotiators in Doha have recently told mediators that they are uninterested in even resuming ceasefire negotiations until the hunger crisis in Gaza subsides.
Hours later, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry reported that two more Palestinians had died over the past day due to complications from malnutrition, bringing the total figure since the start of the war to 159. Ninety of those deaths were children and roughly half of the total deaths took place in the past month alone.
Tensions were also at peak level between Hamas and Arab negotiating countries Egypt and Qatar. Hamas’s lead negotiator Khalil al-Hayya accused Egypt last week of complicity in the humanitarian crisis, infuriating Cairo. The terror group is also angry at Qatar for signing onto a declaration at the UN earlier this week that called for Hamas to disarm and step down from power, the two sources say.
Even though they left Doha, Israeli negotiators still submitted to mediators on Tuesday night their response to the amendments requested by Hamas to the latest ceasefire proposal last week. The Israeli response rebuffed Hamas’s demand that the IDF withdraw from population centers along the southern Gaza border, the sources said.
According to the senior Israeli official briefing reporters on Thursday, there has been a “breakdown in contacts” with Hamas negotiators. “Hamas has cut off communication… There is no one to talk to on the other side. This is also [US special envoy Steve] Witkoff’s understanding,” said the official, who briefed Israeli reporters on condition of anonymity.
The official also noted that Jerusalem and Washington will work to increase humanitarian aid while continuing the fighting in Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, meets with US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff at his office in Jerusalem on July 31, 2025. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)
Witkoff was in Israel on Thursday to meet Netanyahu and other Israeli officials to discuss the stalled negotiations along with the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. He was also slated to make a rare foray into Gaza on Friday with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, amid increasing concern within the US administration regarding reports of mass starvation in Gaza.
While the US and Israel are publicly in agreement on the need for Hamas to disarm, Netanyahu has talked about fighting Hamas until the very last fighter, critics argue that the premier is unnecessarily prolonging the war when Hamas has long been destroyed as a military and governing body and that ensuring that it can’t revive requires installing a viable alternative to its rule — something the prime minister has long refused to do.
Separately Thursday, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group published footage of hostage Rom Braslavski, whom they are holding captive in the Gaza Strip. The terror group claimed the video was recorded days before it lost contact with captors holding the hostage, and alleged that the hostage’s fate was unknown.
Hostage Rom Braslavski, in a still from a propaganda video released by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, July 31, 2025. (Hostages and Missing Families Forum)
Though the video itself did not air at the request of Braslavki’s family, his loved ones allowed a still to be published from the footage. The picture shows the 21-year-old looking pale and emaciated, lying on the ground in an unknown location in Gaza.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which has long called for a full hostage deal, expressed its support for the reported shift in Israeli negotiating policy, urging the Trump administration to work to secure a deal between Israel and Hamas.
“There is no moral or operational justification for partial, ‘selective’ deals. For months, this failed approach has endangered the hostages and delayed the only solution that can end this nightmare: one comprehensive agreement to bring every hostage home,” the Forum said in a statement.
The Forum called on Trump and Witkoff to “secure a comprehensive deal that ends the fighting and brings all 50 hostages home for rehabilitation and the deceased for proper burial.”
