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BRUSSELS – The fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas continued on Wednesday as the militant group released more hostages and some of Israel’s closest friends continued to call on Tel Aviv to extend the pause in its military offensive in Gaza.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said an extension would allow the release of more hostages held in Gaza, including Americans, while allowing more humanitarian aid to reach the Palestinians.
“So this is clearly something we want,” he told reporters after a meeting with NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, where the conflict disrupted talks on security in Europe and Ukraine.
“I think this is something Israel wants too,” he added. He refrained from calling for a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Israeli officials said 16 hostages were released from Gaza on Wednesday. First came Israeli-Russian prisoners Elena Trupanov, 50, and Irina Teti, 73; Hamas said they were released at the request of the Russian government. Israel Defense Forces later said that 10 Israelis and four Thai nationals had been released in the enclave and were on Israeli territory. The IDF cited the International Committee of the Red Cross, which escorted hostages from Gaza.
Among those released was Israeli-American Liat Beinin, 49, her father told The Washington Post.
The pause in fighting began on Friday to allow the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners and detainees. It is scheduled to expire early Thursday.
Officials involved in the ceasefire negotiations being brokered by Qatar said negotiations would likely be extended for at least a few more days – marking another tense reprieve for Gaza. The enclave was hit by Israeli airstrikes, artillery and ground fighting for nearly eight weeks, causing more than 13,300 deaths, the Health Ministry reported last week, and displacing more than 1.7 million people – 80 percent of the population – according to the United Nations.
The conflict erupted on October 7 when Hamas and other militants poured out of Gaza to attack nearby towns in Israel, leaving 1,200 people dead and hundreds taken hostage.
U.N. officials visiting the northern Gaza Strip this week, a focus of Israel’s offensive, described the Jabalya refugee camp as a hellscape that was cut off from humanitarian aid for nearly 50 days.
“Buildings were just split up. “A mess of masonry, twisted metal and sheet iron everywhere,” Thomas White, director of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, said in a statement.
“When we drove through Gaza City, it was like a ghost town; all the streets were deserted. The effects of heavy air strikes and artillery fire were clearly visible. The roads are littered with craters, making it difficult to deliver aid.”
Only four primary care clinics and two hospitals in northern Gaza were fully operational as of Wednesday, according to Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Medhat Abbas. He said more fuel needed for continued health care is expected to arrive in the enclave on Wednesday.
Al-Ahli and al-Sahaba maternity hospitals were operational, Abbas said, while Kamal Adwan Hospital and al-Awda Hospital had provided “partial services” since Tuesday. He said work was underway to supply pharmacies in Gaza with fuel so that the vaccines, which must be stored at certain temperatures, do not spoil.
Hospitals, which Israel and the United States say are used by Hamas as strategic hubs, became a flashpoint in fighting in the northern Gaza Strip this month. Hamas denies the claims, as do hospital staff. Many of the medical facilities were caught in the crossfire and people seeking refuge inside were left stranded.
The Biden administration is urging Israel to significantly reduce the intensity of its attack on Gaza to limit civilian casualties. U.S. officials are increasingly concerned about the high cost of the offensive. Israel says it is focused on eliminating Hamas as a security threat.
Hostages held in Gaza continue to include US citizens, raising the stakes for the Biden administration. CIA Director William J. Burns has met with Israel’s intelligence chief and Qatar’s prime minister in Qatar, hoping to extend the ceasefire in combat and expand the hostage deal. Blinken planned to travel to Israel on Thursday to deliver a similar message.
Blinken also planned to travel to the Israeli-occupied West Bank to meet with Palestinian leaders. He and other U.S. officials are trying to plan for what will happen after the conflict ends — “the day after and the day after,” as he put it Wednesday. The Biden administration says the beleaguered Palestinian Authority is the best authority to govern Gaza. But it is deeply unpopular among ordinary Palestinians, many of whom view it as weak, corrupt and deferential to Israeli interests.
The foreign ministers of the Group of Seven and the High Representative of the European Union also support a further extension. Israeli officials have insisted the pause will not lead to a permanent ceasefire.
“This war will end with the end of Hamas,” Eylon Levy, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister’s office, told reporters on Wednesday. Israel used the pause in fighting “to strengthen our preparations and approve battle plans for continuing the war to destroy Hamas in response to the October 7 massacre, and we will continue if Hamas stops releasing hostages,” he said .
Beinin, 49, the American-Israeli citizen released Wednesday, is one of nine Americans and green card holders who are believed to have been among the hostages.
So far, only Beinin and Abigail Edan, a 4-year-old who saw her parents shot dead by militants on October 7, have been released.
Another American woman, a 70-year-old grandmother, is also believed to be in captivity. The other US hostages are men: They include a 23-year-old who was at a trance music festival and was seriously injured in the October 7 attack, a 35-year-old father, a 64-year-old grandfather and three young men who serve in the Israel Defense Forces.
Beinin, a high school history and civics teacher with three children, was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Her husband, Aviv Atzili, 49, who oversaw the heavy agricultural machinery used to grow the kibbutz’s thousands of acres of peanuts, carrots and potatoes, was also kidnapped; he remains in captivity.
The couple’s oldest child, 22, was at a friend’s house on the day of the shooting and was able to hide. Her middle child, 20, survived by keeping the door of a safe room closed, preventing the attackers from entering. Her youngest child, 18, was not at the kibbutz during the attack.
While violence in Gaza has subsided, Israel has continued military operations in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian health authorities said Israeli forces killed two boys, ages 15 and 8, during a raid in Jenin, a center of Palestinian resistance. The Israeli military said two militant leaders were killed in the operation.
The raid began shortly after 8pm local time on Tuesday, when Israeli armored vehicles descended on the city and surrounded the main hospital. Israeli drones roared overhead, and the cracks of airstrikes and the cracks of gunfire echoed through the night and into the morning on Wednesday, as Israeli troops laid siege to homes in the refugee camp and the nearby town of al-Yamoun, according to residents and accounts , shared on social media channels affiliated with Jenin’s militant groups.
According to Mahmoud al-Saadi, head of the Palestinian Red Crescent branch in Jenin, Israeli forces blocked access to the neighborhoods where they operated or to the city’s public hospital for hours overnight and into the morning.
The armored vehicles left the hospital in the morning. Early in the afternoon, ambulances brought two boys to the emergency room: one bleeding from a gunshot wound to the head, and a second lying pale and motionless on a stretcher a few minutes later as paramedics frantically performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Ministry of Health later announced that both had died from their injuries. The ministry identified them as Adam Othman al-Ghul, 8, and Basel Abu al-Wafa, 15.
Two CCTV videos confirmed by The Post show the moment the two boys were shot. The footage shows that Ghul and Abu al-Wafa were near an intersection with two other boys. The four boys face the same direction, sometimes walking backwards to keep an eye on what or who is just outside the camera’s field of view.
Two CCTV videos recorded on Wednesday, November 29 and confirmed by the Post show the moments two boys were shot dead in Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. (Video: Telegram)
Abu al-Wafa holds an object about the size of his palm in his right hand. As he approaches the center of the street, he appears to attempt to light the object several times by looking down at it and bringing his hands together as if using a lighter. The Post was unable to confirm Abu al-Wafa’s opinion. He continues to hold it as the shooting begins.
The IDF said in a statement “A number of suspects threw explosive devices at IDF soldiers. The soldiers responded with live fire at the suspects and hits were recorded.”
Israeli security forces said in a joint statement on Wednesday that they had killed Muhammad Zubeidi, whom they identified as “the commander of the Jenin camp” and “a senior Islamic Jihad operative.”
According to the armed forces, Zubeidi was involved in two shootings in May that killed one Israeli civilian and injured another and four IDF soldiers. Another militant, Hussam Hanoun, was also killed in the raid.
Fahim reported from Beirut; Slater of Williamstown, Mass.; Parker from Jenin, West Bank; and Mellen from Washington. Annabelle Timsit and Miriam Berger in Jerusalem; Hazem Balousha in Amman, Jordan; and Meg Kelly in London contributed to this report.