• War Israel and Hamas prepare for truce and release of hostages
  • Middle East Storming Hamas's lethal stronghold

In these lands, nothing is less foreseen than an unforeseen event. This rule, with many precedents, is also true in the unprecedented war between Israel and the fundamentalist group Hamas. The release of hostages and the truce, scheduled for Thursday, have been delayed by at least a day. After noting that "contacts for the release of our hostages continue all the time," Israeli national security adviser Tsaji Hanegbi unexpectedly revealed that its start "will not be before Friday." According to Israeli sources, Hamas did not provide the list of the ten children and mothers it had to release in the first batch on Thursday, nor is there the signature of the Islamist group and Qatar.

It is a four-day truce with the option to extend it depending on the increase in the list of Israeli hostages who can return to their homes. Not all of the 239 in the hands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad after being kidnapped on October 7, but perhaps not only the 50 agreed in the agreement sewn between bombs, evacuations, accusations and threats by Qatar, Egypt and the United States.

As shelling and fighting intensified in the Gaza Strip ahead of the ceasefire, Lebanon's pro-Iranian group Hezbollah said it was adding to the calm in the face of its great foe on a border that has experienced the most explosive month since the 2006 war.

Mossad chief David Barnea was in Qatar to oversee the details of the complex complex arrangement and encountered more difficulties than expected. After almost 50 days of traumatic captivity, 30 children and 20 women (eight of whom are their mothers) are expected to see the light of day again in Israel in a gradual process. The ceasefire window could remain open beyond the agreed four days (it depends on the parties and mediators) but it could also be closed much earlier (depending on the tunnel-filled front line).

In exchange for the return of dozens of its own, Israel will suspend massive military pressure on Gaza and release at least 150 Palestinian prisoners - including dozens of children under the age of 18 and women - convicted of belonging to a terrorist group, inciting violence, attacks or attempted attacks. Israeli authorities released a list of 300 prisoners who could be released if Hamas releases more people. The established ratio is three Palestinians for every Israeli. 19 of them were convicted of attempted murder, including a 14-year-old Palestinian woman who seriously injured an Israeli woman living in the same neighborhood in East Jerusalem. Or Israa Jaabins, sentenced to eleven years in prison for detonating a gas canister at a police post, injuring an officer in 2015. The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal against his release filed by an association of victims of terrorism.

The dramatic day will begin tomorrow, if there is no further delay, somewhere in the Palestinian enclave when Hamas transfers 10 Israelis to Egypt amid great confidentiality and mistrust. It will do so by taking advantage of the time slot between 10 a.m. and 16 p.m. in which Israel cannot activate reconnaissance drones. At the Rafah border crossing, the International Red Cross will receive children and women who will be passed to Israeli soldiers, including doctors. At that point, the army will cease its attacks by pausing the response to Black Saturday to "destroy Hamas and return the hostages" in an offensive that has caused thousands of deaths - among civilians and militants - and destruction in the Gaza Strip.

Several Israeli hospitals are prepared to receive the abductees on a health, nutritional, psychological and social level. That will be where the meeting with their families will take place, who until hours before did not know if they were going to see them. And the children are unaware that some of their relatives did not survive the Hamas pogrom in the kibbutzim.

The fact that 190 Israelis and other nationalities remain in Gaza is one of the most frequent criticisms among Israel's opponents of the deal, beyond their fear that after the truce it will be more difficult to resume the operation. In the Israeli media, they point out that Hamas will do everything possible at the media level in Gaza to increase international pressure. From Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority calls for "the total cessation of Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people and the entry of humanitarian aid."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clarified that this is only a pause to save hostages and that the war will continue "until Hamas is finished and all the hostages are returned." Israel's hope is to increase the number of abductees released to more than 80 under the deal. His soldiers are on alert. No one forgets what happened in the 2014 war when, after the announcement of a truce, a Hamas commando killed three soldiers who were looking for tunnels.

The hope of the Islamist organization, for its part, is to increase the number of days of truce considering that in recent weeks it has lost numerous troops and infrastructure, especially in northern Gaza under partial control of the army. Hamas leader Yahia Sinwar believes that the hostages can give him more hours of ceasefire, hoping that they will be part of his lifeline at the group (armed wing), government (control of Gaza) and personal level (his head is the most requested by Israel).

The hope of the Gaza Strip, where two-thirds of its inhabitants have fled their homes during the offensive, is that the humanitarian pause will become a final truce. For the time being, it will receive a larger amount of fuel. According to Islamist spokesman Taher Al Nunu, "as part of the agreement, between 200 and 300 trucks of humanitarian aid will enter northern and southern Gaza, including eight with fuel."

The Israeli army yesterday intensified its air strikes and ground advances to shield its defenses during the truce. The Hamas government denounced the deaths of dozens of people and the siege of hospitals while Israel announced dozens of militants killed and showed a video inside the network of tunnels under the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza.

  • War in Israel
  • Gaza Strip
  • Palestine
  • Israel
  • Benjamin Netanyahu