Israelis and family member of the hostage families protest outside Kiriya military base calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do more to secure the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza (Ilia Yefimovich/dpa via Reuters Connect).
The pressure is mounting on the ground here in Israel, that much is clear.
The demonstrations in Tel Aviv this week have seen thousands come out and demand that the hostages be released — even if it means the Israelis must go back to the negotiating table.
Ruby Chen, whose son is an American-Israeli citizen and IDF soldier currently being held in Gaza, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week. Coming out of the meeting, Chen said: “He (Netanyahu) is the one that is responsible, and the one that has the ability to bring our loved ones back home alive, and the expectation is that he will continue to do, he and the War Cabinet, as much as possible, to bring our loved ones back alive, as soon as possible.”
That is the sentiment you are starting to hear more and more on the ground: The hostages have been held in Gaza for over 70 days and it’s time for them to come home. To be clear, that feeling has always existed here, but it was certainly cranked up a few notches Friday when three Israeli hostages were inadvertently killed by the IDF.
New details emerged this week suggesting the hostages were waving a white flag before they were fired upon by the IDF.
“The shooting at the hostages was against the rules of engagement,” Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said in a video statement. “It is forbidden to shoot at someone who raises a white flag and seeks to surrender. However, this shooting was carried out during combat and under pressure.”
For those here in Israel, a country in which just about everyone here has served, is serving, or knows someone presently serving in the IDF, there isn’t much of an appetite or interest in throwing those individual soldiers under the bus.
The IDF isn’t ready to do that either, as they confirmed to our own Connell McShane the soldiers involved in that incident are still on the ground and serving.
That said, people here are very upset about what happened Friday, and much of the blame is being placed upon the Israeli leadership.
“To the soldiers who unfortunately were involved in this accidental incident in which the hostages were killed, it is clear to you that these soldiers are not at fault.,” said Danny Elgarat, brother of Itzhak Elgarat who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz. “It is the fault of those who made them go there and be there, the same people we have been trying to contact for several days to receive us, to talk to us.”
The initial cogs are beginning to turn towards another pause and hostage release.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Tuesday that: “Israel is ready for another humanitarian pause and additional humanitarian aid, in order to enable the release of hostages. And the responsibility lies fully with (Hamas leader Yahya) Sinwar and the leadership of Hamas.”
CIA Director William Burns met in Warsaw earlier this week with Qatar’s Prime Minister and the head of Mossad, Israel’s spy agency.
Hamas says one of their top officials is in Cairo today as negotiations are ongoing.
Yet National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby injected some contextual reality into the mix by saying the talks were not “at a point where another deal is imminent.”
Still, all signs point to a deal being at the very least closer to a possibility considering where we were just over two weeks ago when the Israelis pulled all of their negotiators out of Qatar, citing an “impasse.”
Adding to the internal pressure from Israelis is the external pressure from around the globe. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 19,000 people are dead and over 85% are displaced.
“Hunger is something people in Gaza have never ever known before,” explained Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the UNRWA. “But hunger has now emerged over the last few weeks, and we meet more and more people who haven’t eaten for one, two or three days.”
More aid trucks have been entering Gaza in recent days according to the Israelis, especially since the Kerem Shalom crossing has been opened.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin thanked the Israelis for their efforts on this front, and re-hashed the American stance that the U.S. stands with Israel. But even so, the Secretary also emphasized more must be done for the people of Gaza.
"Protecting Palestinian civilians in Gaza is both a moral duty and a strategic imperative,” said Secretary Austin. “So we will continue to stand up for Israel's bedrock right to defend itself and we will also continue to urge the protection of civilians during conflict and to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza."
The thinking of many foreign leaders is that another ceasefire would at the very least allow more aid to go into Gaza to help support the more than 2 million people that call the Gaza Strip home.
“Israel must preserve the lives of civilian populations, as international law demands it, and must agree to a ceasefire which would allow for the liberation of hostages,” said French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna.
“It must allow aid and the distribution of aid in much bigger volumes whilst the population is exposed and suffers from many things, it must maintain the functioning of hospitals and medical institutions and, as we have said before, not allowing enough aid to populations that need enough humanitarian aid to respond to their needs would constitute a violation of humanitarian rights.”
The wheels are turning and the pressure is building. Will this confluence of factors be enough to generate another deal? Only time will tell.
Kommentare