The two-day extension of the truce has been greeted with a mix of relief and pent-up hope by Israelis and Palestinians. The first, because it will mean the release of at least another 20 women and minors held hostage in Gaza; the latter, for the release to East Jerusalem and the West Bank of another 60 prisoners and, above all, for adding a small respite to a devastated Strip, whose inhabitants live every day without bombings and every truck with humanitarian aid in the hope that it will not be latest.
In Israel, the Argentine-Israeli Bibas family issued a statement in which they underlined their “great uncertainty” after learning that the couple formed by Yarden and Shiri, and their children Ariel (four years old) and Kfir, 10 months old, would not be not released this Monday either. Shortly after, the Israeli army reported that the four are not in the hands of Hamas, but of another unidentified Palestinian faction. “The agreement has given us hope, but no matter how much hope there is, I will not say that they are in our hands until I see them in front of me with my own eyes,” Yair Keshet, Yarden’s uncle, said on Friday in Tel Aviv to this newspaper.
“This afternoon’s news brings a breath of relief to our community. However, we remain deeply concerned for our loved ones who are still kidnapped,” Osnat Peri, leader of Nir Oz, the Israeli kibbutz from which 49 of the hostages taken in the October 7 attack still remain in Gaza, said in a statement. “We ask for everyone’s return, immediately, whatever the cost.”
In Gaza, the population only resignedly waits for the ceasefire to become definitive. This is what the main mediators of the pact, Qatar and Egypt, ask for, and Israel vehemently rejects. His Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, already warned on Thursday that the pause will be “brief” and the army will resume the war “with intensity” throughout Gaza.
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“Yes, the bombings have stopped, but we need a truce that allows us to return to our homes. If not, it does not make sense. “I would rather go back to my house and die there than be in a tent living in shame and forced to depend on other people for basic needs,” Ayman Harb, a father of three children who took advantage of the cessation of hostilities to cross south of the line to which Israel has forced hundreds of thousands of people to move.
Search for water and food
Palestinians are taking advantage of the absence of fighter-bombers in the sky to take to the streets to obtain food (scarce and expensive) or stand in line to fill jugs with drinking water. The Ministry of Health of the Hamas Government has also reported that the dialysis department of Al Shifa Hospital, in the capital, has returned to operation, once the Israeli troops that occupied it have withdrawn.
For now, Hamas is only extending the truce for 48 hours because it cannot commit to handing over 20 women and minors, since it has to locate the rest, as it assured the Qatari mediators. One of the leaders of the armed Islamist group, Jalil Al Hayya, indicated late in the day that, after the two additional days, a new agreement must be negotiated that also includes adult men.
This is the case of Yonatan Samrano, kidnapped at the Nova festival. His mother, Ayelet, asked this Monday on national public television to put an end to the “hierarchization” of the hostages. “We have the obligation not only to receive what they give us, but to ask. “We dictate the list,” she said. Or Itai Regev, 18, whose sister Maya did regain her freedom on Sunday, within the framework of the pact. “It is very hard for Maya to be here and for Itai to be in Gaza. He is a merry-go-round of emotions that is difficult to describe,” said his mother, Mirit.
Sinwar’s visit
Although information about the status of the released Israeli hostages is being closely controlled, details about the conditions of their kidnapping in Gaza have been emerging, mainly through publications by relatives on social networks or reports from local media.
As can be seen in the images, they are in apparently good physical condition, except for an 84-year-old woman who spent fifty days without medication for the chronic illnesses she suffered from and is seriously hospitalized. They were not attacked or tortured, and received medication intermittently. Surprisingly, Yahia Sinwar, the political leader of Hamas in Gaza and the man most wanted by Israel, visited some of them and tried to reassure them in Hebrew, a language he learned in prison.
All the hostages have lost weight because they received little food (usually rice, hummus, pita bread and water), in line with the situation suffered by the majority of Gazans. Some have skin diseases, apparently from staying underground. Itai Pesaj, manager of the Safra pediatric directorate, near Tel Aviv, has assured that the hostage children are being able to return home after receiving basic medical care and that psychologists are not asking them questions about what happened.
Those who were held in more remote places underground slept on plastic benches and sometimes had to wait between one and two hours to go to the bathroom. A part was divided based on the locality in which they were captured, as far as they knew each other. Or he was allowed access to radio news in Hebrew. This is how a woman discovered that her son had been murdered on October 7. Others only learned that they had lost loved ones that day once they returned to Israel.
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