If you haven’t already heard the news, Israel has agreed to pause it’s war in Gaza, in exchange for the release of 50 Israeli hostages.
The 50 women and children are part of more than 240 hostages, taken when Hamas stormed into Israel Oct 7 killing 1200 people, and snatching children and teenagers, and mothers and fathers from a music festival and from army bases and Kibbutzim.
When? Israeli media report the first of the hostages could be out on Thursday.
A statement from the Government -
“The Government of Israel is obligated to return home all of the hostages. Tonight, the Government has approved the outline of the first stage of achieving this goal, according to which at least 50 hostages – women and children – will be released over four days, during which a pause in the fighting will be held. The release of every additional ten hostages will result in one additional day in the pause.
The Government of Israel, the IDF and the security services will continue the war in order to return home all of the hostages, complete the elimination of Hamas and ensure that there will be no new threat to the State of Israel from Gaza”.
The pause in fighting will occur the moment the first child crosses the border out of Gaza, and Israel has agreed to release three times the number of Palestinian prisoners.
Israel will have to suspend drone flights over Gaza, although this point is more murky since Israel has other ways of observing the refugee camps inside the Strip, and will want to be watching from where these hostages emerge, specifically for tunnel entrances.
The deal sets a dangerous precedent in this war, because now Israel will likely be put under more pressure for more pauses in the war in the future.
It potentially allows Hamas to regroup, and endangers Israeli soldiers already inside Gaza.
But while the hostages had to be a priority, imagine your one of the families who has a loved one held in Gaza, and you will hear the joyous news some are coming home, just not your father or son.
More aid to Gaza will also be part of the arrangement brokered by Qatar, and soem of that food and fuel will be no doubt diverted to Hamas and it’s war effort.
Like I said in the headline - there were never good options.
The tricky thing about understanding the hostage situation in Gaza is this; the Israelis taken are being held by many different Palestinian factions in many different places.
When Hamas stormed out of Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians followed them, including armed criminal factions, Islamic Jihad and others.
Israeli hostages were seen as a currency to be traded for cash or prominence amongst Palestinians. And finding them all means looking in every corner and dealing with a myriad of hostage takers.
It’s even a challenge for Hamas to find them all, which can demand their return from some factions, but Hamas may not know exactly who has all of those taken and held in miserable dark corners of Gaza undergoing rape and torture and starvation.
The pause will help Gazan’s get some needed humanitarian assistance, but the long term plan for Gaza isn’t even being talked about. That discussion needs to begin.
Still to come, is the release of the other Israeli hostages who can’t come home this week, some 200 of them, and that negotiation will be much tougher.
Hamas will demand it’s fighters, even those with blood on their hands be released from Israeli jails. And this time the discussion in Israel’s Cabinet and Parliament will be much much more difficult.
Let’s at least feel joy for the 50 Israeli’s who are about to come home, thats IF this pause really works and if Hamas and Israel stick to the conditions of the deal.