There are not even 24 hours left until the bombs fall on the Gaza Strip. But Hamas is trying to prevent that from happening. A source close to the Palestinian militia has said the group is willing to extend the truce for four more days, according to the AFP news agency. “Hamas has informed mediators that it is willing to extend the truce for four days and that the movement could release Israeli prisoners that it, other resistance movements and other parties [han retenido] during this period, according to the terms of the existing truce,” he declared. IsraelFor the moment, it has not commented on a second extension of the ceasefire, although it is engaged in intense negotiations with the mediators of Qatar and Egypt. Since the beginning of the truce last Friday, 81 Israeli and foreign hostages have been liberated from the Gaza Strip, and 180 Palestinian women and children imprisoned in Israeli prisons they have been released.
In principle, the first truce agreement established that there would be four days in which daily exchanges of Israeli hostages by Palestinian prisoners, the entry of trucks with humanitarian aidwhich included fuel and gas cylinders for cooking, and the pause in fighting and the bombings on the punished enclave. On the verge of ending the ceasefire, Israel and Hamas, with the help of Qatar, Egypt and USAthey agreed to extend the truce Two days more. Therefore, the end of the calm and the family reunions would take place this Thursday. During these six daysthe population of Gaza has been able return to their homes and recover the few, or almost none, belongings that are left standing. These days without threats from heaven have allowed the world to stop and check the magnitude of widespread destruction committed by the Israeli Army on the Palestinian enclave.
Babies eaten by worms
The local journalists those left alive – Israel has killed around fifty in the enclave – have been able to record images that have shocked the Palestinian people. In it Al Naser Pediatric Hospital in Gaza City, they have found the bodies of premature babies forced to be abandoned after receiving repeated threats of Israeli fire on November 10. Many of their corpses were being eaten by maggots.
Palestinian civil defense teams have found, at least, 160 bodies under the rubble, despite the fact that there are hundreds of missing people after almost 50 days of bombings. Although, since the beginning of the truce, reunions and occasional joys have taken place, the population of Gaza knows that it is a matter of hours or days before the bombs come back on them.
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The original agreement stipulated that the ceasefire could be extended for more days, until a total of 10, including the first four, if Hamas released at least 10 additional hostages each day, and Israel released more security prisoners at a ratio of three prisoners to each hostage. The largest Palestinian militia present in Gaza has stated that it will use this time to locate more captives held by other armed groups or by civilians. Hamas has already stated that will not free any soldier nor a member of the Israel Defense Forces, but he has begun to show openness to letting out civilian men after all the captive women and children have left. The hostages’ families are putting strong pressure on the Israeli government to extend the truce.
In turn, the israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, faces its own extremist government. The far right Itamar Ben Gvir, the Minister of National Security, is the main champion of preventing the war from stopping. On his social media, on Tuesday night he openly tweeted: “stop the war = dissolution of the Government”. ‘Bibi’ finds himself at a crossroads again, although, on other occasions, he has opted for his ultra-religious and far-right partners with the ultimate goal of saving himself, rather than his own people.