Israel calls it likely to extend the ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for hostages

A third exchange of hostages and prisoners took place between Hamas and Israel, with the US expressing hope that a fragile four-day truce in Gaza would be extended beyond Monday while Israel indicated its military campaign was far from over.

Israel said Hamas released 17 hostages, including a Russian citizen and three Thai citizens. All Israelites were women or children. Thirty-nine Palestinian prisoners, including women and children, have been released from Israeli prisons, authorities said.

According to The Guardian, the day brought some very emotional moments: the release from Gaza of a girl orphaned by Hamas’s attack on Israel last month, and aid finally reaching northern Gaza, which had been devastated by Israeli bombing.

Joe Biden welcomed the release of four-year hostage Abigail Edan, a dual US-Israeli citizen, and said he wanted “the pause to continue as long as prisoners are released.”

The US President added that his administration “will continue to personally ensure that this deal is fully implemented and will also work to extend it.”

Hamas has signaled its readiness to extend the truce, and a source told AFP news agency that the group has told mediators they are willing to extend it by “two to four days.”

“The resistance believes it is possible to secure the release of 20 to 40 Israeli captives” during this time, said a source close to the Palestinian Islamist movement.

Tempering hopes for a long-term end to the offensive, Benjamin Netanyahu said during a visit to Israeli troops in Gaza, the first visit by an Israeli prime minister since 2005: “We will continue until the end, until victory. Nothing can stop us.”

Netanyahu also said on Sunday that he told Biden in a phone call that Israel would resume its campaign in full force once the truce comes to an end, but that he would welcome its extension if it would facilitate the release of 10 more hostages daily, as has been the case agreed as part of the original agreement brokered by Qatar.

Qatar said Hamas needed to find dozens of hostages to extend the truce. Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said at least 40 women and children were believed to be detained in Gaza but were not being held by Hamas.

“If they get additional women and children, the deadline will be extended,” he told the Financial Times. “We don’t have any clear information yet about how many they can find because … one of the purposes of the pause is so that they will have time to find the remaining missing people.”

There is believed to be disagreement within Hamas over extending the ceasefire: political leaders based in Qatar favor an extension, but those in Gaza believe that with nearly 200 hostages still in their hands, they are in a strong position and must resist any concessions. The group said in a statement on Sunday that it seeks to extend the truce if serious efforts are made to increase the number of Palestinian prisoners released from Israel.

The truce brought the first significant pause in seven weeks of war, marked by the deadliest Israeli-Palestinian violence in decades and widespread destruction and displacement across the Gaza Strip, The Guardian notes.

The conflict was sparked when Hamas militants broke through the perimeter fence around Gaza on October 7 and attacked communities in southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians in their homes or at a music festival. More than 240 people were abducted, including infants, the elderly, the disabled, soldiers and foreign farm workers.

More than 13,300 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive launched after the Hamas attack, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to the health ministry of Hamas-ruled Gaza. More than a million people were forced to leave their homes.

Under intense international pressure, Israel has agreed to release at least 150 Palestinian prisoners and allow up to 300 aid trucks into the coastal area after weeks of a crippling blockade of fuel, food, medicine and other essential supplies that has caused an acute humanitarian crisis.

Calls by families of the hostages to prioritize their release have deepened the dilemma facing Israeli leaders as they seek to coordinate a military offensive to free all captives. Many officials say Hamas only makes concessions when faced with overwhelming force, so the offensive must continue.

Observers and sources close to the negotiations said a major problem was the almost complete lack of trust between Israel and Hamas.

Israel accused Hamas of preventing the International Committee of the Red Cross from visiting hostages held in Gaza, while a coalition of groups representing relatives of the hostages criticized Hamas for releasing children without their parents. Both were called violations of the agreement.

Osama Hamdan, a Hamas spokesman, accused Israel on Sunday of allowing only 65 of the 340 aid trucks that have entered Gaza since Friday to reach the northern territory, or “less than half of what Israel agreed to.” Israel said it was Hamas that stopped the flow of humanitarian aid to the north.

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, also said that Israel did not comply with the conditions for the release of Palestinian prisoners, which took into account the time they were held in custody.

Among the Palestinians released so far by Israel were at least two women who were sentenced to long prison terms after Israeli courts found them guilty of violent attacks. Many Palestinians view prisoners held by Israel, including those involved in the attacks, as heroes resisting the occupation and celebrate their release.

The war in Gaza has been accompanied by rising violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the Israeli army has arrested hundreds of Palestinians since the start of the war, mostly people it suspects of being Hamas members. In Ramallah, Palestinian families anxiously awaited news, and many relatives of the many thousands of Palestinians detained by Israel hoped that the current list of 300 candidates for release under the deal would be expanded.

In southern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people from the north have taken refuge, residents lined up at gas stations for a second day hoping to stock up on fuel.

The Israeli military ordered the Palestinians not to return to the north and not to come within a kilometer of the border fence. The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli forces opened fire on two farmers in central Gaza on Sunday, killing one of them.

On Sunday, Hamas announced the death of Ahmed al-Ghandour, who was in charge of northern Gaza and was a member of the top military council. Ghandour, believed to be around 56 years old, is the highest-ranking militant known to have been killed in action. Israel has killed a large number of mid-level Hamas commanders, but few senior leaders.