Israel and Hamas seemed closer than ever these past few days to reaching a deal on a prisoner exchange. Hamas' leadership in Gaza has repeated to the media over the past two weeks that they currently have a rare “opportunity” to reach this long-anticipated deal, and Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar newspaper, which is believed to have close ties to Hamas, has been reporting that a prisoner exchange mediated by Egypt is increasingly likely.

What seems to be propelling the idea forward is the coronavirus pandemic. This crisis has provided both Israel and Hamas with greater room for public flexibility on precisely those issues that have prevented any progress on a prisoner exchange in the past.

For some time now, Hamas has insisted that it would not agree to discuss any prisoner exchange before Israel releases the Palestinian prisoners who were released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit deal and then later re-arrested by Israel for alleged involvement in terrorism. Hamas contends that these prisoners must be released as a prerequisite for any talks about a new deal. Israeli security forces rejected the idea out of hand in the past, and the idea hit a dead end. Then the coronavirus appeared, and Hamas seemed willing to relax its insistence on this precondition.

In order to obscure the notion that it is stepping back from its original terms, Hamas has been refusing to refer to the purpose of the current communications as a “prisoner exchange deal.” Instead, it prefers to call this a “humanitarian initiative” brought on by the coronavirus. A list of 250 prisoners that Hamas relayed to Israel for immediate release includes mainly infirm and elderly prisoners, as well as women and young prisoners. In exchange, it is willing to provide information about Israelis held by the organization in the Gaza Strip. They are referring to civilians Avera Avraham Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayyad and the bodies of fallen soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin, who were killed during Operation Protective Edge in 2014.