GAZA CITY — Amid the difficult political and financial situation facing Hamas, voices began to emerge within the movement in May 2015, calling for direct negotiations with Israel to avoid conditions being set by middlemen and the latter’s inability to compel Israel to abide by any agreement. 

Hamas does not object to direct negotiations with Israel from a religious or ideological point of view. Inside Israeli prisons, long-standing negotiations have been undertaken between Palestinian prisoners and the Israeli Prison Service. These are ongoing on a daily basis to secure the rights of prisoners to education, medical treatment and visits by families and to calm tensions.

Tawfiq Abu Naim — director general of Gaza's security apparatus and a former member of the High Commission of Hamas Prisoners while jailed in Israel — was released in the 2011 exchange for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. He told Al-Monitor, “We negotiated with the Prison Service for many years, and we do not have qualms about conducting direct negotiations with Israel on matters that affect the lives of citizens. Regarding political negotiations, on the other hand, Israel’s demands have a very high price. Israel wants to be recognized as a state, to have security coordination, to maintain its control over the crossings and preserve [the Palestinians’] economic dependency. Yet, we will not pay any price, due to the previous experiment in which Israel failed to abide by the agreements reached with the PLO.” One such agreement is the 1994 Paris Protocol.

Hamas and Israel had reached an agreement in October 2011 through Egyptian-mediated negotiations for Shalit's release in return for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners being freed. The negotiations took place in two separate rooms, with each party occupying one and Egyptian intelligence chief Raafat Shehata shuttling between them to convey demands and replies.