Getting used to peace is easy. The cease-fire in Gaza runs out today, if there are no further extensions, of which there were already signs last night. It is the sixth day without fighting in the strip, where thousands of displaced people have had almost a week of relief, receiving food and portraits, after Israel allowed humanitarian aid to enter as part of the agreement with Hamas.
The UN’s Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) says there are 1.7 million displaced people out of a population of two million. Even if the extension is extended, sooner or later they will live again in the middle of a war where Israeli bombs have already killed 15,000 people, a third of whom are minors.
Today is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People and UNRWA took the opportunity yesterday to take stock of the tragedy and reiterate the request that the ceasefire be definitive. The organization has lost 108 workers in the bombings and 218 refugees died while taking refuge in UN schools attacked by the army.
Meanwhile, the relatives and friends of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas in the terrorist attack of October 7 continued yesterday, as every day, shouting slogans for their release in front of the entrance of the Ministry of Defense, Menahem Begin Avenue in Tel-Aviv. In the evening, they celebrated the release of twelve hostages, ten Israelis and two Thais. This time there was only one who was a minor, a 17-year-old girl.
At the same time, Israel released 30 Palestinian prisoners in the West Bank, making it the fifth exchange.
Today should be the sixth and final exchange of prisoners for hostages. As of yesterday, 81 people have no longer been held captive, but nearly 159 remain kidnapped. At the same time, 180 Palestinian prisoners have been released. The odds that another extension will be announced are high. The directors of the CIA, Mossad and the Egyptian intelligence service met last night in Doha meeting with the prime minister of Qatar to try to force another extension of the ceasefire in Gaza.
On the other hand, yesterday there were two symbolic gestures. On the one hand, the Forum of Families of Hostages and Missing Persons invited the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to visit their central camp in Tel-Aviv, after at the beginning of the war the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu , asked him not to visit Israel. At the same time, Hamas invited the tycoon Elon Musk, owner of X, to visit Gaza, who visited Israel on Monday to strongly support the Jewish state. “We invited him to visit Gaza so that he could see the extent of the killing and destruction that has been committed against the people of Gaza, according to the standards of objectivity and credibility,” Osama Hamdan, the leader of Hamas in Lebanon.