Israel and Hamas are now beginning a delicate process of exchanging hostages for prisoners amid an uncertain political future and a devastated territory
The Gaza Strip has entered into a ceasefire situation this Sunday for the first time since November 2023 after the agreement reached by Israel and Hamas to temporarily cease hostilities and facilitate an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, the final arrangement of which has caused a delay of almost three hours from the time initially scheduled for the truce, 07.30 in the morning.
“According to the plan for the release of the hostages, the Phase I ceasefire in Gaza will come into effect at 11:15 a.m.” (local time, 10:15 a.m. in mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands), announced the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his account on the social network X.
Israel demanded that Hamas hand over the names of the three Israeli hostages that the Palestinian Islamist movement had to hand over this afternoon according to the terms of the agreement. The Palestinian Islamist movement blamed the delay on “technical reasons” in a complex process by which it must first hand over these names to the mediation of Qatar, which in turn communicates them to Israeli intelligence, and from there to the families.
Finally, the spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, Abu Obeida, has publicly disclosed the names of the three hostages who will be released this afternoon: Romi Gonen, 24 years old; Emily Damari, 28, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31.
Damari and Steinbrecher were abducted from their homes in Kibbutz Kfar Aza during the October 7 massacre, while Gonen was kidnapped at the Nova music festival, another epicenter of the Palestinian militia attack against Israel, which triggered the Gaza war.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed receipt of the list of hostages to be released today” as part of the ceasefire agreement and, after starting a “verification process” and informing the families, began a ceasefire ultimately ratified by Qatar, the country that mediated the agreement.
In a later statement, the Qatari Foreign Ministry confirmed that “the names of the three hostages to be released today have been handed over to the Israeli side,” according to its spokesman, Majed al Ansari. “They are three Israeli citizens, one of whom is of Romanian nationality and the other of British nationality, so the ceasefire has begun,” said Al Ansari.
The violence continued until the last moment: after the agreement was declared paralyzed at 07.30, Israel announced the beginning of bombings in several points of Gaza that have left, in two and a half hours, at least 19 dead and 36 wounded, according to the Civil Defense of the enclave The Palestinians told the pan-Arab network Al Jazeera.
RELEASE PROCESS
The next step will take place this afternoon, at around 3:00 p.m., when Hamas will hand over the three hostages to Israel in exchange for at least 90 Palestinian prisoners under the terms stipulated in an agreement that provides for the release of 1,900 prisoners in exchange for 33 hostages over the next six weeks.
The 1,904 Palestinian prisoners to be released over the next 42 days include 1,167 Palestinians detained since the outbreak of the Gaza war on October 7, 2023, plus another 737 prisoners who were already previously in prison, including 22 with “serious blood crimes,” including, for example, the former commander of the armed wing of the Palestinian party Al Fatah in Jenin, West Bank, Zakaria al Zubaidi, according to the list published by the Israeli Ministry of Justice.
In exchange, the Islamist movement Hamas has agreed to release 33 of the 98 hostages held by Palestinian militants in this first phase, starting with the release of the three Israeli hostages to their families this coming Sunday, at the beginning of a trickle of releases every Saturday or Sunday, culminating in the sixth week with the release of 14 hostages, explains the ‘Times of Israel’.
For each of the women, children and elderly who are alive, 30 Palestinian prisoners will be released; for the nine sick hostages, 110 prisoners will be released; for each of the female Israeli soldiers, 50 prisoners will be released; for the hostages Avera Mengistu and Hisham al Sayed — who have been held captive in Gaza for a decade — 30 prisoners will be released each, in addition to the 47 Palestinians released in a previous agreement in 2011 and arrested again.
For the bodies of the deceased hostages that Hamas returns in this first phase, Israel will release the more than 1,000 Gaza detainees mentioned above.
Another 65 people are being held by Hamas, many of whom are also no longer alive, and could be handed over as part of a second phase of a deal that, if finalized — negotiations begin 16 days after the ceasefire takes effect — would also include a permanent cessation of hostilities in Gaza and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces. A hypothetical third phase would involve rebuilding an enclave razed to the ground.
POLITICAL UNCERTAINTY
Gaza has become the grave of more than 46,900 Palestinians due to the attacks unleashed by Israel after the massacre committed on October 7, 2023 by Palestinian militias, which left 1,200 Israelis dead, and the entire enclave is practically devastated, in need of urgent aid — Egypt is finalizing the entry of dozens of humanitarian trucks — and still under the directives of the Islamist movement, which has resumed its security powers on a large scale to guarantee the ceasefire.
Part of the Israeli government considers the agreement as a defeat, as described this morning by the ultra-nationalist Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, who has announced in protest his withdrawal from the coalition led by Netanyahu, weakened by this abandonment but far from being in danger of falling thanks to the support of other radical elements such as his Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich.
The Palestinian Authority, the internationally recognised Palestinian government, has spent the past few days proclaiming that it is capable of assuming security responsibilities in Gaza, but Hamas maintains that it is the only party capable of leading the enclave on behalf of the Palestinians, and overseeing the next phases of the ceasefire agreement.
“I convey to our brothers and to the rest of the Palestinian factions,” declared Hamas’s senior political official, Mahmoud Darwish, this past Saturday, “that our hands are extended for unity everywhere and at any time.”
Israel, however, has reiterated that the ceasefire does not in any way mean the consolidation of Hamas’ power. In the first official statement after the beginning of the cessation of hostilities, the Israeli Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, assured that “the Government of Israel reiterates its commitment to achieving its objectives, which include the liberation of the hostages and the dismantling of the governmental and military capabilities” of the Islamist movement.
