- LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
- On the last agreed ceasefire day, Palestinians line up for flour, visit destroyed houses or relax on the beach with children
- The Palestinian foreign minister says Qatar, Egypt, the US, the EU and Spain are all working to extend the ceasefire
GAZA/JERUSALEM, Nov 27 (Portal) – Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas have raised concerns over the lists of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners due to be released on Monday, the last day of an agreed four-day break in fighting, a spokesman said on the matter informed official.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Portal that Qatari mediators were working with Israel and Hamas to resolve the issues and avoid delays.
Hamas said it wanted to extend the ceasefire. An Israeli official reiterated Israel’s position on Monday that it would agree to an additional day of ceasefire for every 10 more hostages released and would release three times the number of Palestinians each time.
“There is a small problem with today’s lists. The Qataris are working with both sides to resolve the issue and avoid delays,” said the official briefed on the matter.
Israel said earlier it had received what may be the final list of hostages up for release overnight. The list is being reviewed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said, adding that more information would be provided where possible.
On Sunday, Hamas released 17 people, including a four-year-old Israeli-American girl. This brings the total number the militant group has released since Friday to 58. Israel released 39 teenage Palestinian prisoners on Sunday, bringing the total number of Palestinians released since the ceasefire began in 117.
An Israeli government spokesman said Monday that the total number of hostages still held in Gaza now stands at 184, including 14 foreigners and 80 Israelis with dual nationality.
A Palestinian official familiar with the ceasefire talks said both Hamas and Israel had shown a positive attitude toward calls for an extension of the four-day pause in fighting, but added that “a final decision has not yet been made.”
Qatar, Egypt, the United States, the European Union and Spain are all working to extend the ceasefire, Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki said during a conference in Barcelona dedicated to the crisis.
An Israeli official told Portal that the responsibility was on Hamas to submit a new list of 10 hostages it could release on Tuesday in return for making this an additional ceasefire day. This process will last a maximum of five more days beyond the current ceasefire, the official added.
Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan told Lebanese broadcaster LBC that the group would try to find more hostages to release and thus extend the ceasefire. Hamas has previously said it is not holding all of the hostages brought to Gaza.
Those transferred by Hamas on Sunday included 13 Israelis, three Thais and one with Russian citizenship, and the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed that it had successfully transferred them from Gaza.
“I can’t believe I’m free”
The ceasefire agreed last week is the first halt in fighting in the seven weeks since Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and bringing about 240 hostages back to Gaza.
[1/13]Israel’s military operates in the Gaza Strip during a temporary ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in this handout image released November 27, 2023. Israel Defense Forces/Handout via Portal acquire license rights
In response to this attack, Israel bombed the enclave and launched a ground offensive in the north. According to health authorities in the Gaza Strip, around 14,800 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.
According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, Palestinians gave a happy reception to the released prisoners in Ramallah.
17-year-old Omar Abdullah Al Hajj, who was released on Sunday, told Portal he had been kept in the dark about events in the outside world.
“We were eleven people crammed into a single room where there are usually six. There was never enough food and I was never told how long I would stay,” he said.
“I can’t believe I’m free now, but my joy is incomplete because our brothers are still in prison,” said Al Hajj, who Israel’s Justice Ministry accused of belonging to the militant group Islamic Jihad and posing a security threat didn’t specify it.
Palestinians in Gaza said Monday they are praying for an extension of the ceasefire. Some visited homes reduced to rubble by weeks of intense Israeli bombardment, while others lined up to deliver flour and other essential supplies from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
The Al Sultan family joined hundreds of thousands of displaced people from their homes in northern Gaza for a few hours of much-needed relaxation by the sea.
“We took advantage of these four days (truce) and came to the beach in Deir Al-Balah to let our children have some fun,” said their mother, Hazem Al Sultan. “We await the end of these four days and do not know what will happen to us next.”
As Israel attacked Hamas targets in the northern Gaza Strip in recent weeks, it had urged residents to move south, but some remained there, including some doctors and nurses at the Kamal Edwan medical complex in Gaza City caring for patients cared for, including children, who they said could not be moved.
“The situation here is very bad, we have no food, drink, other necessities or even medical care,” said nurse Hashem Abu Warda.
EU APPEAL
The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said on Monday that the ceasefire was an important first step but that much more was needed to defuse the situation.
Speaking at the Forum for the Union of the Mediterranean in Barcelona, Borrell also called on Israel not to re-colonize Gaza and said that the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip was the best guarantee of Israel’s peace and security .
Al-Maliki of the Palestinian Authority, which administers the occupied West Bank, told the forum that the international community must put pressure on Israel to extend the ceasefire indefinitely. The death toll would double if the war resumed on Tuesday, he added.
Netanyahu said over the weekend that after the ceasefire ends, “we will return with full force to achieve our goals: eliminating Hamas, ensuring that Gaza does not go back to what it was; and of course the release of all our hostages.”
Reporting by Portal bureaus; writing by Raphael Satter, Lincoln Feast and Gareth Jones; Editing by Diane Craft, Raju Gopalakrishnan, Miral Fahmy and Nick Macfie
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