Nizar Awadallah: ‘Hidden Key’ in the Gaza Negotiations

In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, right, greets Nizar Awadallah, a member of the Hamas leadership council, during their meeting in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

Gaza: Asharq Al Awsat

08:31-9 February 2025 AD ـ 11 Sha’ban 1446 AH

Gaza: Asharq Al Awsat

08:31-9 February 2025 AD ـ 11 Sha’ban 1446 AH

Nizar Awadallah: ‘Hidden Key’ in the Gaza Negotiations

As Hamas released a new batch of Israeli captives on Saturday, sources within and close to the movement revealed that a senior leader played a crucial yet largely unseen role in the negotiations that led to the prisoner exchange deal and the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

According to these sources, Nizar Awadallah was the “hidden key” in the Gaza talks, particularly as the process moved into its second phase with Israel.

Awadallah, a senior Hamas leader, was one of the most influential figures in managing the negotiations. His role was pivotal in identifying critical gaps in the talks and addressing them before they could become obstacles. While he did not participate directly in all meetings with mediators, he frequently engaged in internal discussions with the Hamas leadership, ensuring that the negotiating team avoided strategic missteps.

Currently, Awadallah is outside Gaza, having left shortly before the recent war along with other senior Hamas political bureau members. Sources indicated that he played a key role in extensive meetings with Hamas’ political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, before the latter was assassinated in Tehran last year.

Awadallah was reportedly cautious about Israel’s commitment to agreements, often advocating for stricter conditions that would compel Tel Aviv to comply. He pushed for a more stringent approach to the prisoner exchange mechanism, seeking to ensure that Hamas would not be left vulnerable to Israeli maneuvering.

While sources stopped short of calling him the “planner” of the current ceasefire and exchange deal, they emphasized his significant role alongside other key Hamas figures.

Awadallah was instrumental in past negotiations, particularly in the 2006 capture and subsequent 2011 prisoner exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. A year after the exchange, Israeli media identified him as one of its mastermind, alongside Ahmad al-Jaabari, the slain commander of Hamas’ military wing, Al-Qassam Brigades.

Beyond negotiations with Israel, Awadallah also played a crucial role in talks between Hamas and Fatah aimed at Palestinian national reconciliation. He was involved in multiple rounds of discussions hosted by various countries.

He briefly led Hamas’ political bureau in Gaza between late 2004 and early 2007, a period marked by intense political and military challenges. It was during this time that Hamas took control of Gaza by force, captured Shalit, and faced international isolation after forming the Palestinian government in 2006—only to be swiftly dismissed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Awadallah is considered part of Hamas’ founding generation, closely associated with the movement’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, as well as senior figures like Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi. He was deeply involved in shaping Hamas’ early strategies and political direction.

During the latest war in Gaza, Awadallah suffered a loss when his eldest son, Ubaida, was killed in an Israeli airstrike.

As It Attacks Iran's Nuclear Program, Israel Maintains Ambiguity about Its Own

FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)

Asharq Al Awsat

10:25-23 June 2025 AD ـ 27 Thul-Hijjah 1446 AH

Asharq Al Awsat

10:25-23 June 2025 AD ـ 27 Thul-Hijjah 1446 AH

As It Attacks Iran's Nuclear Program, Israel Maintains Ambiguity about Its Own

Israel says it is determined to destroy Iran’s nuclear program because its archenemy's furtive efforts to build an atomic weapon are a threat to its existence.

What’s not-so-secret is that for decades Israel has been believed to be the Middle East’s only nation with nuclear weapons, even though its leaders have refused to confirm or deny their existence, The Associated Press said.

Israel's ambiguity has enabled it to bolster its deterrence against Iran and other enemies, experts say, without triggering a regional nuclear arms race or inviting preemptive attacks.

Israel is one of just five countries that aren’t party to a global nuclear nonproliferation treaty. That relieves it of international pressure to disarm, or even to allow inspectors to scrutinize its facilities.

Critics in Iran and elsewhere have accused Western countries of hypocrisy for keeping strict tabs on Iran's nuclear program — which its leaders insist is only for peaceful purposes — while effectively giving Israel's suspected arsenal a free pass.

On Sunday, the US military struck three nuclear sites in Iran, inserting itself into Israel’s effort to destroy Iran’s program.

Here's a closer look at Israel's nuclear program:

A history of nuclear ambiguity Israel opened its Negev Nuclear Research Center in the remote desert city of Dimona in 1958, under the country's first leader, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion. He believed the tiny fledgling country surrounded by hostile neighbors needed nuclear deterrence as an extra measure of security. Some historians say they were meant to be used only in case of emergency, as a last resort.

After it opened, Israel kept the work at Dimona hidden for a decade, telling United States’ officials it was a textile factory, according to a 2022 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an academic journal.

Relying on plutonium produced at Dimona, Israel has had the ability to fire nuclear warheads since the early 1970s, according to that article, co-authored by Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists, and Matt Korda, a researcher at the same organization.

Israel's policy of ambiguity suffered a major setback in 1986, when Dimona’s activities were exposed by a former technician at the site, Mordechai Vanunu. He provided photographs and descriptions of the reactor to The Sunday Times of London.

Vanunu served 18 years in prison for treason, and is not allowed to meet with foreigners or leave the country.

ISRAEL POSSESSES DOZENS OF NUCLEAR WARHEADS, EXPERTS SAY

Experts estimate Israel has between 80 and 200 nuclear warheads, although they say the lower end of that range is more likely.

Israel also has stockpiled as much as 1,110 kilograms (2,425 pounds) of plutonium, potentially enough to make 277 nuclear weapons, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a global security organization. It has six submarines believed to be capable of launching nuclear cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles believed to be capable of launching a nuclear warhead up to 6,500 kilometers (4,000 miles), the organization says.

Germany has supplied all of the submarines to Israel, which are docked in the northern city of Haifa, according to the article by Kristensen and Korda.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST POSE RISKS

In the Middle East, where conflicts abound, governments are often unstable, and regional alliances are often shifting, nuclear proliferation is particularly dangerous, said Or Rabinowitz, a scholar at Jerusalem's Hebrew University and a visiting associate professor at Stanford University.

“When nuclear armed states are at war, the world always takes notice because we don’t like it when nuclear arsenals ... are available for decision makers,” she said.

Rabinowitz says Israel's military leaders could consider deploying a nuclear weapon if they found themselves facing an extreme threat, such as a weapon of mass destruction being used against them.

Three countries other than Israel have refused to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: India, Pakistan and South Sudan. North Korea has withdrawn. Iran has signed the treaty, but it was censured last week, shortly before Israel launched its operation, by the UN's nuclear watchdog — a day before Israel attacked — for violating its obligations.

Israel's policy of ambiguity has helped it evade greater scrutiny, said Susie Snyder at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a group that works to promote adherence to the UN treaty.

Its policy has also shined a light on the failure of Western countries to rein in nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, she said.

They “prefer not to be reminded of their own complicity,” she said.

Nizar Awadallah: ‘Hidden Key’ in the Gaza Negotiations

Nizar Awadallah: ‘Hidden Key’ in the Gaza Negotiations

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As It Attacks Iran's Nuclear Program, Israel Maintains Ambiguity about Its Own

As It Attacks Iran's Nuclear Program, Israel Maintains Ambiguity about Its Own

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