Arab analyst Zvi Yehezkeli on Monday night responded to reports that Hamas is softening is position on a future prisoner swap.
"The issue Hamas has discussed most in the past day is that they are trying to understand what the change in the forces' deployment means," Maariv quoted Yehezkeli as saying. "This makes it change its conditions for the deal."
Yehezkeli added that there is a possibility that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar "agrees to an interim process - around 40 hostages, a one-month ceasefire, and more dominant Egyptian mediation."
"What will Hamas achieve here? Patience. They understand that Israel is serious and that the game is about time. They estimate that the fighting will continue but not powerfully, and so they want time, and thus Hamas is torpedoing Israel's goals for the war."
A recent Egyptian proposal for a prisoner swap would include a first stage in which Israel will stop the fighting for at least two or three weeks, and Hamas would release 40 hostages in return for 120 terrorists. In the second stage, a professional government will be established in the Gaza Strip consisting of Hamas and Fatah members, and the bodies of IDF soldiers will be released.
In the third stage, Israel will announce the end of the war, the IDF will leave the Gaza Strip, and the terror organizations will release the remaining hostages.