2023-11-27 23:24:14
by Davide Frattini
11 hostages delivered: 9 children and 2 women. Netanyahu and Gallant: the war will resume stronger
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
TEL AVIV — The truce ended the fear of bombing for four days and silenced the lawnmower noise of drones overhead. It also extinguished the hope that the war was a terrible suspended time, that — after the 52 days that stretch on — normal life could return. Instead, Palestinian families who ventured north along the hidden paths, avoiding the four-lane Salah al Din controlled by Israeli troops, could see the devastation.
Normal life does not exist and will no longer exist, in rubble. He doesn’t find his moments even in the 96 hours without fighting, the rituals remain the same as those of poverty, of those displaced within their land: queuing for bread and water (there are more, thanks to the 200 aid trucks provided by the agreement), to break the doors and window frames dismantled from the houses already in pieces to make firewood, the cold wind and the rain arrived like every year in November, but this year is different from everyone else.
I mediators
The government of Benjamin Netanyahu and the leaders of Hamas – announced the mediators of Qatar, central with the active support of the Americans and the Egyptians – have agreed to extend the ceasefire by two days. With the same methods: 20 Israeli hostages in total against 60 Palestinian prisoners (women and minors), the entry of convoys with food, medicines, fuel. The General Staff aware that Yahya Sinwar, the boss of bosses, needs to buy time, the drip releases allow him and the Islamist organization to survive a little longer: the Channel 12 news reveals that he met some of the prisoners and spoke to them in Hebrew, he learned it in prison.
The soldiers
Sources in the group declare that they are ready to begin negotiations also for the return of the soldiers. Since the first kidnapped people returned home last Friday, the Israelis want to see them all again: 49 percent – according to a survey by the Israel Democracy Institute – declare that the objective of the conflict is to free those captured, while 32 percent wants the elimination of Hamas. A change compared to the first reactions after the massacres in the south of the country, 1,200 Israelis killed by terrorists.
Netanyahu repeats that the war will continue until the destruction of Hamas, it was military pressure that allowed mediation on the kidnapped, at least 190 remain. Before the pause in operations, the troops surrounded Jabalya and are preparing to enter it when the conflict begins again, already the longest ever fought by Israel, apart from the year of the War of Independence. It is inevitable – writes analyst Amos Harel in the newspaper Time – that the invasion will expand to the south, where almost all of the 2.2 million inhabitants of the Strip are now crowded together, with 16 thousand Palestinian deaths. Yoav Gallant, the Minister of Defense, says this to the soldiers waiting inside Gaza: We will use even more force and attack everywhere.
The families
Yesterday’s exchange was delayed – 6 Thais who worked in the village fields were also released – because initially the list presented by Hamas included only minors, without their mothers. The Israelis refuse to separate children from their parents even though it happened on Sunday in the case of Hila Rotem, 13 years old. Sharon Aloni, Danielle’s twin who had already been let go, arrived in Israel yesterday with her twins Emma and Yuli, her husband David remains a prisoner, as does Ronen Engel, while his wife Karina and daughters Mika and Yuval are free.
The little brothers
Even the little brothers Or and Yagil Yaakov, who slept alone in the house and hid in the safe room. Sahar and Erez Calderon return without their father for now. Eitan Yahalomi, 12 years old, had been taken away together with his mother and his little sisters in different vehicles. The woman had managed to escape with her daughters, the boy had ended up in Gaza.
The youngest of those captured remains in Gaza: Kfir Bibas, who has completed ten months in captivity. Together with his parents and little brother he would have been passed by Hamas to another group near Khan Younis.
Corriere della Sera also on Whatsapp. It’s enough click here to subscribe to the channel and always be updated.
November 27, 2023 (modified November 27, 2023 | 11:14 pm)
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
#Truce #extended #days #free #hostages #Israeli #army #preparing #resume #offensive #attack #time.news