00:00Good evening, Joaimil. This is extremely significant and also has caught the Israeli government completely unprepared.
00:08Nobody thought that Hamas was going to respond tonight after Donald Trump gave them a deadline of Sunday night Israel time.
00:17And I have to say that the Israeli government, including many of Prime Minister Netanyahu's ministers, were openly assessing that Hamas would say no.
00:27The exit strategy of the Israeli government to get out of this deal, which was basically imposed by Donald Trump, was to assume that Hamas would say no.
00:38And they have played this surprise very, very shrewdly, I would say.
00:45The document, that they released a long, formal document, and it is complex.
00:50On the one hand, it does say clearly that they, as you said, that they're prepared.
00:55I will read from the statement itself.
00:58The movement announces its approval to release all occupation prisoners, it says, referring to the hostages, alive and deceased, according to the exchange formula outlined in President Trump's proposal.
01:10This means that it is according to the key written, presented in Donald Trump's appointment of how many Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails will be released for every Israeli hostage.
01:22However, there are other points where Hamas said yes, but yes to entering negotiations.
01:30And there are some fairly significant discrepancies.
01:35For example, the Trump document stipulates that Hamas will not be part of any transitional internationally run government or any transitional Palestinian government or any elected future Palestinian government.
01:48According to the Trump plan, Hamas is out.
01:52They say, to the contrary, that they will not turn over the Gaza Strip to any international forces, only to a Palestinian ruling body of which they will be a part.
02:06That is very significant.
02:08The matter of not disarming until the occupation forces leave is also complex because it is unclear to me from this document, which I just received minutes ago, whether Hamas is referring to the withdrawal, the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, as they state clearly in one part of the statement.
02:28Or whether when they make reference to the complete withdrawal of Ukraine, or whether when they make reference to the complete withdrawal of occupation forces, they refer to all Palestine, including the West Bank, which would be politically impossible for Netanyahu.
02:40That said, with all of these caveats said, the fact that Hamas rapidly responded, basically within the framework of Donald Trump's initial deadline, and that they begin this document by saying they accept the Donald Trump framework and that they will release all the hostages, this sets into place a certain momentum.
03:02And whatever their other demands, it will be politically almost impossible for Prime Minister Netanyahu now to say no, even if their other demands are politically very, very challenging for him.
03:17Well, I was going to ask that question because in terms of compromise, there certainly has to be in any negotiation.
03:23And Hamas, in what is quite extraordinarily this long document, as you've said, they've managed to write this in the Gaza Strip, in the way that it is right now.
03:34They are going to be looking at a compromise.
03:37It was made public in Qatar.
03:40Made public in Qatar, but possibly written.
03:42We don't actually know where the details.
03:45Do we expect any kind of a compromise?
03:47I mean, given the fact that it has caught the Israeli government by such surprise, what do we expect their reaction to be in taking into account those far-right ministers in Netanyahu's coalition?
04:03I expect it to be a very complicated reaction, and we have not heard anything just yet.
04:09You know, this all happened in under an hour ago.
04:12But again, once Hamas has made this statement, and with the entire world having seen Benjamin Netanyahu standing by Donald Trump's side and saying,
04:22we accept the Trump parameters, a certain momentum has been put into place.
04:28And it will be very difficult for Hamas to significantly withdraw or squiggle out of that commitment to release all the hostages.
04:38Immense pressure has been put on Hamas by Qatar, by Egypt, and by most of the Israel's Arab and Muslim neighbors,
04:48as far away as Indonesia and as close as Jordan and Lebanon, all joined in congratulating Donald Trump and accepting his provisions.
04:57So it is interesting in this statement that Hamas put out that they go to great lengths to acknowledge the Arab world's efforts to achieve a ceasefire.
05:10And they do thank Donald Trump, but they principally are thanking these Arab countries.
05:14These are the same Arab countries that if Hamas tries in some way to wiggle out of this commitment or to backtrack,
05:21will be putting immense pressure on Hamas and possibly on Qatar to make sure this goes through.
05:26Similarly, Netanyahu, if he feels politically threatened from his own cabinet, which is entirely possible,
05:35he will find it almost impossible to withdraw from a public commitment made to Donald Trump
05:41and from the wishes and desires of 80% of the Israeli people who have been out on the streets daily for more than a full year now,
05:51demanding an end to the war almost under any conditions.
05:55So each part, each part of these two parties to this agreement, who were not, by the way, initially a party
06:03to writing this proposal, they have now each been kind of in a pincer movement.
06:10They've been manacled.
06:10It'll be hard to pull back significantly.
06:14I don't want to say it's impossible because the Middle East is very complicated and very difficult to predict,
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