Hamas confirmed it had agreed to a two-day extension with Qatar and Egypt. “An agreement has been reached with brothers in Qatar and Egypt to extend the temporary humanitarian ceasefire for another two days, under the same conditions as the previous ceasefire,” a Hamas official said in a phone call to Portal. Israel has not yet commented on this. The White House confirmed the agreement to extend the ceasefire.
According to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the prolonged ceasefire in the Gaza war will not be enough to bring the necessary aid to the Gaza Strip. What the population there needs is “dramatic”. Guterres spoke of the hope that more border crossings could be opened.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office earlier reported that Israel had received a list of the hostages’ names. According to media reports, Israel and Hamas would be unhappy with this. “Negotiations on the list of those to be released (…) continue,” Netanyahu’s office said on Monday.
Tim Cupal (ORF) on the ceasefire
Tim Cupal knows what opportunities the ceasefire offers for both sides.
Reports of “problems” with a list
A Hamas official in Beirut, Lebanon, said the comments were forwarded to Qatari and Egyptian mediators. According to an unidentified official by the Portal news agency, “minor issues” with the list still need to be resolved. Qatari mediators are working to address concerns on both sides and avoid delays, he said.
According to Egyptian information, eleven Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip are expected to be released on Monday. The Egyptian State Information Service (SIS) announced in the afternoon that negotiations were underway to release 33 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons in exchange.
Apparently some prisoners are a point of contention
According to the newspaper Haaretz, Palestinian sources report that one of the points of contention between Israel and Hamas over the list concerns six detainees who were arrested before the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7. According to the sources, they were not on the list that Israel presented to the other side on Sunday – so it is unclear whether they could be released on Monday.
An Israeli government spokesman declined to comment on the media reports. A Hamas official in Beirut, Lebanon, said the comments were forwarded to Qatari and Egyptian mediators.
APA/AFP/Fadel Senna Palestinians released from prison in Red Cross vehicle
Media: Eleven hostages on the list
According to Israeli media reports, the Hamas hostages to be released are eleven people. Israeli government spokesman Eilon Levi said on Monday that 184 hostages were still being held in the Gaza Strip. Of these, 14 are foreigners and 80 are Israeli citizens with dual citizenship.
more on the subject
Tug of war over extension of ceasefire
It would be the fourth group of hostages to be released since the ceasefire began on Friday in exchange for the release of Palestinians from Israeli prisons. So far, 58 hostages have been released. In exchange for the freed hostages, 117 detained Palestinians have so far been released from prison.
Hostage released in mortal danger
Meanwhile, according to Israeli media reports, one of the hostages released on Sunday is in mortal danger. The 84-year-old woman was taken to an Israeli clinic in a life-threatening condition, she said, citing the hospital in Beer Sheva. At the same time, details were released about the fate of a four-year-old girl with dual US and Israeli citizenship who was released by Hamas.
Ceasefire in Gaza extended
Just hours before the end of the ceasefire in the Gaza war, initially scheduled to last four days, Israel and the Islamist Hamas agreed to an extension, according to Qatar. The ceasefire in effect since Friday will be extended for two days, Majid al-Ansari, spokesman for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry, said on Monday. Meanwhile, Israel has contacted relatives of the hostages who are expected to be released later in the evening.
Girl lying under her father’s body
The girl had to witness the murder of both her parents before being taken to the Gaza Strip. On October 7, the then three-year-old girl was at home, on the border with the Gaza Strip, with her two brothers, aged ten and six, when Hamas terrorists invaded and shot her mother in front of the three. children.
As her father lay protectively over his daughter, he was also shot, US media reported. Her brothers survived because they hid in a box, where they waited 14 hours before being rescued, she said.
Her younger sister, who was initially thought to be dead, climbed out from under her father’s body and ran to a neighbor’s house, the Washington Post said, citing a relative of the girl. The terrorists grabbed the girl along with the five neighboring family members and kidnapped them. The girl completed four years in captivity on Friday.
First reports of hostages returning home
Meanwhile, there are reports in the Israeli media about the conditions in which those kidnapped had to live. According to some family members, their relatives were not mistreated during their captivity in the Gaza Strip. Hostage detention conditions were described as harsh. The media said people prepared their own food – some days there was no food at all.
It is said that there were problems accessing the bathrooms. There were also no sun loungers or beds; people slept on benches or armchairs together. People were not always kept in underground rooms during their nearly seven weeks of captivity – and had to change location repeatedly. Guards sometimes allowed some of the hostages to listen to Israeli radio. Other hostages, on the other hand, were isolated from the outside world and clueless.
The head of the Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Jihia al-Sinwar, reportedly visited Israeli hostages after they were kidnapped in the coastal strip. Israeli television reported this on Monday, citing a freed hostage. “You are safer here, nothing will happen to you,” he said. The report cannot be independently verified.
“Humiliating” prison conditions
As in previous days of exchanges between hostages and prisoners, many people took to the streets on Sunday night in the West Bank – where the prisoners will initially be returned – to greet the buses with the freed prisoners.
Conditions in the prisons were “humiliating”, Sarah al-Suwaisa, one of the 39 freed Palestinian prisoners, told the BBC. Pepper spray was used against prisoners and they were also locked in “dark rooms,” she said, without providing further information. The prisoners suffered from the cold.
USA: Probably not all hostages in Gaza are in the hands of Hamas
However, the US government assumes that not all hostages kidnapped in the Gaza Strip are held by Hamas. “We believe that not all of the hostages are in the hands of Hamas,” National Security Council communications director John Kirby said on US television on Monday morning (local time). It can be assumed that there are other groups holding some of the hostages.
Regarding a possible extension of the ceasefire to free more hostages against Israeli Palestinian prisoners, Kirby said that in order to do so, Hamas terrorists would also have to find and recover those hostages. Kirby did not provide several hostages that may be in the hands of other groups. CNN reported about 40 hostages, citing unnamed diplomatic sources.