Israel and Hamas had been nearing an agreement in talks that he was mediating before Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks, former Palestinian Authority minister Sufian Abu Zaida said on Monday.

The contacts focused on a potential deal for the release of two Israeli civilians and the bodies of two IDF soldiers held in Gaza. In return, the sides had discussed Jerusalem releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, easing its blockade of Gaza, allowing more Palestinian workers to enter Israel and resolving the enclave’s electricity and water crises.

Seeking to distance the mediation effort from the October 7 onslaught, Abu Zaida said in a post on X that the negotiations had been intended to avert further deterioration in Gaza.

“We have no connection whatsoever to what happened on October 7, nor does it have anything to do with the role I played,” he wrote. “Everything I did was aimed at preventing Gaza from reaching the situation it is in today.”

Abu Zaida, a former PA prisoner affairs minister and member of a breakaway Fatah faction led by exiled Palestinian politician Mohammed Dahlan, revealed last week that he had served as an intermediary between Israel........

© The Times of Israel