2023-11-21 18:32:28
After six weeks of interminable waiting and dashed hopes, the relatives of some 236 hostages – Israeli, foreign or binational – held by Hamas since October 7 saw a glimmer of hope late Tuesday afternoon. The main parts of a complex negotiation suggested that a deal was imminent.
As of Monday evening, the leader of Hamas in exile in Doha, Ismaïl Haniyeh, wrote on Telegram: «We are getting closer to concluding a truce agreement. » Qatar, mediator in this case, confirmed on Tuesday that the parties “had never been so close to an agreement”. Even the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who refrained from any comments, reported “progress on the release of hostages”. “I hope we will have good news soon,” he added. Israel’s war cabinet was due to meet in the evening to review the deal.
Information on its content remained conditional as we closed this edition. “Nothing is done until everything is done” in the careful words of White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
Three Palestinian prisoners for one hostage
According to the American site Axios and several Israeli media, the agreement would include a first phase, during which Hamas would release 50 women and children detained in the Gaza Strip. No nationality was specified. In exchange, Israel would release around 150 Palestinian detainees, mainly women and minors.
These releases on both sides could take place during a four-day ceasefire. As for the four hostages released at the end of October, the International Committee of the Red Cross, whose president was in Qatar on Monday, would facilitate their transport to Israel.
Still according to Axios, the Hebrew state would also authorize around 300 aid trucks to enter the Gaza Strip from Egypt every day. In a second phase, Hamas would release up to 50 women, children and elderly people, in exchange for an extension of the ceasefire for a few days. Israel would then release three Palestinian prisoners for each hostage returned.
“Who is keeping the hostages? »
The conclusion of such an agreement would mark a considerable diplomatic breakthrough, the first, since forty-six days of war and captivity for the hostages. Although this is not the first time that Israel has negotiated with Hamas, this situation is unprecedented in several respects. Unlike the talks to free the Franco-Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011, these discussions took place in a context of war and therefore difficult choices for the Israeli war cabinet.
“We saw this with the debate on the government’s number one priority: should we first release the hostages or continue to militarily dismantle Hamas? The discussion became heated,” notes former Israeli negotiator Moty Cristal. Monday evening, a relative of the hostages expressed his anger towards a minister in the Knesset. “Stop talking about killing Arabs, talk about saving Jews!” “, he said.
Another difficulty of this file, according to the expert : “Who is holding the hostages? It’s not just Hamas, some are held by Islamic Jihad, others by warlords who took them on October 7. It is not sure that Yahya Sinwar (the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Editor’s note) controls the release of hostages who are not in the hands of Hamas”, believes Moty Cristal.
The game of the master of Gaza, who spent twenty-three years in Israeli jails and is a man to be killed, constitutes the great unknown. “As a negotiator, you have to understand his logic, and statements presenting him as a psychopath are irrelevant, judges the specialist. We need to understand how he thinks. However, he needs breaks in fighting to redeploy his forces. And he knows that detaining children, women and Holocaust survivors is against the values of Islam and against his interests. It is his responsibility to get rid of it. »
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Who are the hostages taken to Gaza?
Israeli media count 236 hostages. But the border between prisoners and the missing is still shifting: some victims believed to be hostages were ultimately identified as killed in the October 7 attack. And Hamas has announced on several occasions that some detainees had been killed in Israeli raids, without this being able to be verified.
Of these 236 hostages, Agence France-Presse identified 206, presumed alive: at least 107 men, 62 adult women, including eight in their 80s, and 9 soldiers recorded.
35 minors, including 18 children aged 10 or under, are detained and at least 32 families deplore several hostages.
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