A ceasefire in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas in exchange for the release of dozens of hostages that Hamas captured in southern Israel has been agreed, according to sources on both sides almost round. The ceasefire agreement, which many other countries have been pushing for for weeks, would also include the release of hundreds of Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
Such a ceasefire – however temporary – would give the severely affected civilian population in the Gaza Strip some much-needed breathing space. Many have been without adequate food and drinking water for weeks, while the risk of infectious diseases is rapidly increasing due to a lack of sanitary facilities in the places in the south of the Gaza Strip where they have fled. Many also suffer from cold due to rain and wind. However, it is still unclear how much aid can be brought to civilians during the ceasefire.
On Tuesday morning, Hamas leader Ismail Haniye confirmed to the Reuters news agency and others in his exile in Qatar that a truce is near. US President Joe Biden had also previously stated that he expected an agreement soon. Israeli sources also suggested this. Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, whose country mediates between Hamas and Israel, revealed on Monday that discussions were only continuing on a few minor points.
War Cabinet
On Tuesday evening, the Israeli war cabinet – a select group around Netanyahu and former opposition and army leader Benny Gantz – would first discuss the draft deal. The regular cabinet would then also consider it. Prime Minister Netanyahu said he hoped there would be good news about the hostages “soon.”
The French news agency AFP reported two people close to the negotiations understood that fifty to a hundred hostages would be released in exchange for the release of some three hundred Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. Ten hostages would be released per day against a higher number of Palestinian prisoners. In principle, the truce would apply for five days. This mainly concerns women and children, but Israel is also said to have demanded that Hamas release the husbands of hostage women, even though some of them are soldiers. However, that demand was reportedly rejected by Hamas.
John Kirby, White House national security spokesman, emphasized that nothing was certain until the final details of the truce and exchange had been arranged. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also did not reveal anything about an impending deal on Monday. “We will not stop fighting until we bring the hostages home,” he said after speaking to relatives of Israelis held hostage by Hamas.
The conversation with the family members only came about after some delay, after they and thousands of others had walked from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in a days-long march. In this way, they hoped to force the government to make even more efforts to rescue the approximately 240 hostages in total, who are probably still in the hands of Hamas. It is not certain whether these hostages are all still alive.
Precedent
Not everyone in Israel welcomes such a truce and the associated exchange of hostages and Palestinian prisoners. The far-right Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, for example, predicted Tuesday told Israeli television that such a deal would be “disastrous.” He recalled the 2011 exchange of one Israeli soldier for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. According to him, that precedent had actually encouraged Hamas to take many Israelis back to the Gaza Strip as hostages on October 7, after the movement’s fighters carried out a massacre in southern Israel earlier that day that left some 1,200 Jews dead.
In recent days, the same Ben-Gvir had angered the hostages’ families with a bill providing for the death penalty for terrorists. This was submitted to the Knesset, parliament, on Monday. Although there is not yet sufficient support for this bill, relatives of hostages fear that it could encourage Hamas fighters to kill their loved ones.