Yesterday, Hamas made the thousands of people who gathered in Tel-Aviv suffer more than normal – 100,000 according to the Israeli press – to demand the release of the already close to 216 hostages that the Islamist group was holding along with the Islamic Jihad Palestine (GIP), coinciding with the Sabbath and with the 50 days of the kidnapping that took place during the terrorist attack of October 7, which are fulfilled today.
Everything was ready on Saturday night for the release of 20 more hostages, 13 of them Israelis – women and children – and 7 more of other nationalities, who were not informed and who could be 7 more Thai workers. In exchange, Israel would release 39 more Palestinian prisoners – women and teenagers – imprisoned in the Ofer prison, in Beitunia, in the occupied West Bank, in front of which a Red Cross coach was guarding last night.
At the end of the day, the expected news came when Israel reported that 17 of the abductees – in the end there were 13 Israelis and only 4 foreigners – had been handed over by Hamas fighters to the Red Cross in an unspecified location in Gaza and they were heading to the Rafah crossing to cross into Egypt and be transferred to Israel by road.
The second release of hostages, corresponding to the second day of the ceasefire, after the cessation of hostilities on Friday, was confirmed by the Qatari government late yesterday, after a “delay” occurred, as the ‘had qualified Hamas, leaving all of Israel in a state of distress.
As it happened on Friday, the release was scheduled to take place in the early afternoon but there was no news of the abductees. Instead, a rare communique from the Al Quds Brigades, the armed arm of Hamas, arrived via Telegram. “The release of the second group of hostages is being delayed due to Israel’s non-compliance with the terms of the agreement,” said a message that necessarily recalled what government and military sources they reiterate these days to journalists: “You can’t trust Hamas and everything can change at the last minute.”
In fact, the spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF, for its acronym in English), Daniel Hagari, appeared last night at a press conference, when Qatar had already confirmed that the release of the 20 hostages would be carried out, and it was extremely ambiguous: “It cannot be concluded until it is really like this”, he said. Hagari was clear about an eventual breach of the agreement by Hamas. “Israel will return to combat,” he said.
Hamas justified the delay by accusing Israel of breaching the agreement the two sides reached on Tuesday, which includes the release of 50 hostages – women and minors – during a four-day truce, in exchange for them being put in freedom 150 Palestinian prisoners. The fundamentalist organization stated in the statement that the Israeli government had stopped “the entry of aid trucks to the north of the Gaza Strip” and that it had breached the agreement regarding the “rules for the release of prisoners “palestinians
Yesterday morning, the second day of the truce, the Israeli government had announced that the humanitarian aid trucks also agreed to in the agreement had already entered Gaza through Rafah. From the short statement by Hamas, it follows that these trucks would not have arrived – or would be doing so very slowly – in the north of the strip, which is an area officially evacuated by the army, although there are still Gazans refugees in hospitals , UN schools and other buildings.
In this sense, a Hamas spokesman had already let it fall in the early hours of yesterday on the Al-Jazeera channel that there could be suspense, as it happened. The said spokesman denounced that Israel had violated the cease-fire started early on Friday because its troops fired at displaced Palestinian civilians who were trying to return to their homes – or what is left of their homes – north of the strip, the army argued, because Hamas had encouraged them. An information from the AP agency assured on Friday that the soldiers had killed two Gazans, although Israel did not confirm this.
The impasse experienced yesterday was overcome thanks to the intervention – as usual – of Qatar and Egypt, but also of the President of the United States, Joe Biden, who spoke by phone with the Qatari Emir, Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, to try to clear the “delay”.
Finally, the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, Majed Al Ansari, reported that the ceasefire and the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners would continue as agreed, but after the scheduled time. “The obstacles were overcome thanks to the mediation of Qatar and Egypt”, stated Al Ansari.
The list of the kidnapped people who were to be released yesterday had been given many hours earlier to the Mossad, the Israeli secret services, in Doha, the capital of Qatar, whose government sent a delegation to Israel yesterday to follow up of the agreement with Hamas, before the Islamist group announced that the second installment would be delayed.
Before Hamas caused all this suspense, it was not ruled out that it would release another group of Thai hostages yesterday, also kidnapped during the terrorist attack of October 7. After low-key direct negotiations with the Thai government, also mediated by Qatar, Hamas on Friday released 10 Thai hostages and one Filipino hostage who was apparently released by mistake, according to some Israeli media. because the kidnappers did not know his nationality. Although the nationalities of the seven non-Israelis to be released were still unknown last night, they were expected to be Thai.
The 24 released on Friday – of the nearly 240 kidnapped on October 7 – were taken to hospitals in Israel, where they were reunited with their families. Eight of the thirteen Israelis spent Friday night admitted, under observation, without their condition being in danger.
Once the release of the 17 people was completed yesterday, 199 hostages would remain in the hands of Hamas and the GIP.
