STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
President Trump's hostage affairs envoy has explained his choice to hold direct talks with Hamas. Adam Boehler spoke on CNN yesterday.
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ADAM BOEHLER: The reality is what I wanted to do is jump-start some negotiations that were in a very fragile place. And I wanted to say to Hamas, what is the endgame that you want here?
INSKEEP: NPR's Daniel Estrin has been listening to this and covering other aspects of the story. He's in Tel Aviv. Hey there, Daniel.
DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: So what did you learn from Boehler's TV appearances?
ESTRIN: Well, he offered some extraordinary details about what went on behind closed doors with Hamas. He said they didn't just talk about a hostage-prisoner exchange. So they spoke about the future, with Hamas suggesting a five- to ten-year truce with Israel, the U.S. ensuring no Hamas tunnels or military activity in Gaza, that Hamas would not be involved in governing Gaza. Steve, this is the first time we've heard specifics from inside the negotiating room about Hamas laying down its arms.
INSKEEP: Wow, that's really interesting and certainly more interesting than some of the strange write-ups of the CNN appearance. There were social media posts, actual news stories suggesting that Boehler called Hamas pretty nice guys. So I went and watched the video. It doesn't show him calling Hamas nice guys. He says maybe the Israelis might have feared that he would find they'd be pretty nice guys. The real story there is that Israel was concerned that he reached out to Hamas for direct talks. So where does Israel stand about all this?
ESTRIN: That's right. A main confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was upset and called Adam Boehler and said, what were you doing with these direct talks? This breaks with previous U.S. policy because the U.S. classifies Hamas as a terror group. Boehler, in his interviews, tried to defend why he did meet directly with Hamas. He wanted to jump-start the talks. You have to understand it's a very uncertain moment in Israel now. There is no real agreement on a ceasefire, and there's a lot of right-wing pressure to return to war. So you see Israel taking steps to look tough on Gaza and to appease the right-wing public.
INSKEEP: By doing what?
ESTRIN: Well, one step is that they've announced a cut of electricity to a desalination plant in Gaza providing drinking water. This has limited effect because actually, Israel has cut electricity to Gaza since the beginning of the war mostly. And so now this plant will have to work on generators. And you have to understand fuel is in short supply. Israel is restricting fuel now, so that does make a difference.
And then also at the Israeli Parliament, we attended yesterday a hearing about Palestinian emigration from Gaza. Now, this is not happening now, but it is something that Israel wants to see happen. They've reached out to countries to try to take in Gazans. This was an attempt to breathe life into an idea that Trump himself raised several weeks ago.
INSKEEP: It's interesting to hear all this, Daniel, because we just heard the U.S. envoy was asking Hamas, what is your endgame? Where do you want this to go? That is the same question U.S. officials have asked for a couple of years now of Israelis without really an answer coming back too clearly. So where do the talks go now?
ESTRIN: Yeah, that's right. Well, the talks really are focused on the next weeks and what's going to happen with the hostage prisoner exchange. Israel, Hamas and the U.S. are going to be holding talks in the coming days in Qatar. These are the most serious talks since President Trump took office. An official familiar with the matter told me that a new ceasefire deal could be coming in the coming weeks. An Egyptian official tells us there's a proposal on the table for a two-month ceasefire, with American hostages released first.
INSKEEP: NPR's Daniel Estrin is in Tel Aviv. Thanks for the insights, as always.
ESTRIN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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