LEILA FADEL, HOST:
People in the Middle East have spent this whole year waiting on a cease-fire, from combatants to civilians under fire in tents to hostages at locations unknown.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
And so as the year ends, we have a review of efforts to stop the war in Gaza. Talks were on again, off again. Moments of optimism were followed by weeks of no talks at all.
FADEL: NPR's Emily Feng is joining us from Tel Aviv to take us through this year of rocky negotiations as the war continues. Hi, Emily.
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: Hi, Leila.
FADEL: OK, so earlier this month, we were hearing a lot of optimism that a deal was close, before the end of the year, and, like so many times before, a deal didn't come. What are the major roadblocks?
FENG: The biggest roadblock is disagreement over how long this cease-fire could be. Hamas wants a permanent one. Israel has been insisting on a temporary truce first. And a Hamas official familiar with the negotiations told NPR late last week, they just didn't see this as a real cease-fire proposal. There's also disagreement over even how many Israeli hostages, dead or alive, Hamas would release and then, again, which Palestinian prisoners and detainees Israel would release and also exactly where Israeli troops would withdraw from after that. The concern among Hamas is once they hand over Israeli hostages, Israel would just go back to war. And so this lack of trust on both sides is further hamstringing negotiations. I spoke with Jamal Zahalka. He's a former member of Israel's parliament, and he used to work really closely with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And Zahalka told me he thinks the prime minister is now in no rush for a cease-fire, especially before a new U.S. administration takes over.
JAMAL ZAHALKA: I think Netanyahu is waiting for Trump, and if Trump make pressure on him or asked him to end the deal, he will end the deal.
FENG: Or put pressure on him to make a deal. And Zahalka says Netanyahu believes he can get more concessions if he waits for Trump to become president again because he sees Trump as a closer political ally than Biden.
FADEL: OK, so let's say a cease-fire happens, if it were to happen. Is there any plan for what happens to Gaza then?
FENG: Right. Israel's stated goal in Gaza was to topple Hamas. And Hamas has been greatly crippled but not totally destroyed. And now the big question is, who takes Hamas' place? Israel has never stated a plan for the day after war. The United Nations just said last month that 95% of schools in Gaza have been destroyed. The economy is gone. It's going to be a huge job to rebuild Gaza. So there's another Palestinian group, the Palestinian authority, or PA. It's a rival to Hamas. They want to govern Gaza. They already govern parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and they actually used to govern Gaza until they lost out to Hamas. So there's that. And then within Israel, there's another debate going on on whether maybe Israel should physically occupy and rule Gaza again.
FADEL: Is that something Israel is considering?
FENG: This is not yet the official position of Israel, and polls show there are lots more Israelis who also tell us they want a cease-fire of any sort right now, just to free the Israeli hostages held in Gaza. But there is another extreme proposal that's coming from what's called the settler movement, these right-wing Jewish activists who want to take land from Gaza and settle Jewish communities there. One of the founding members of this movement is Daniella Weiss, and I spoke to her earlier this month right outside the Gaza Strip.
DANIELLA WEISS: When we take from the Gaza people, from the Gazans land, soil, part of the Gaza Strip, this will be the tag price, the real punishment.
FENG: As in punishment for the October 7 Hamas attack, she told me. And Weiss' idea is to kick out 2 million Palestinians from Gaza and end the war that way, though this is illegal by international law. So when I look back at the year, it's been a roller coaster. There's been tons of political maneuvering. And in the end, as we end the year, the death toll in Gaza keeps ticking higher.
FADEL: That's NPR's Emily Feng in Tel Aviv. Thank you, Emily.
FENG: Thanks, Leila. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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