Hamas will release eight hostages on Thursday that he took in his attack on October 7, 2023, five more of the initially planned, according to Israeli media after the delivery of the list by the Islamist movement. The additional five are Thai workers who were that day in the vicinity of Gaza, where they usually work in agriculture. Its delivery (which Hamas has not confirmed) goes by a parallel route, is not part of the high fire agreement in Gaza or entails counterparts. In exchange for the three Israeli hostages, 110 Palestinian prisoners (32 of them sentenced to perpetuity and 30 minors and women) will be released. It will be the third exchange of the truce, just when the hairy is approaching time to negotiate the passage to the second phase, which would put a definitive end of 15 months of devastating Gaza invasion. That transition is – according to the Israeli public television – one of the themes that the special envoy of the White House for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, and the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamín Netanyahu, in a meeting in Jerusalem, have addressed on Thursday.
The five Thai (their names have not been revealed) suppose half of the hostages of other nationalities even in the strip: eight Thai, a Nepali and a Tanzano. Two of the Thai and the Tanzano have already been given by dead.
Yes, the names of two of the three Israeli hostages were already known in the hands of Hamas and Islamic jihad that will regain freedom on Thursday. One is Yehuda Arbel, 29. Just for her this extraordinary exchange will take place. Israel prevented tens of thousands of Gazati for a day to return to the north of the strip, in retaliation because Hamas had not released it before four welders.
The second is Agam Berger. She is 20 years old and was captured on her second mandatory military service at the Nahal Oz military base. It is the last of the soldiers that had the mission of watching Gaza that remains in the hands of Hamas, after the delivery of his four companions last week, with a theatrical staging of the Islamist movement.
The name of the third has not been known until the afternoon of Wednesday. The hostage forum has confirmed that it is Gadi Moses. He is 80 years old and was kidnapped at Kibutz Nir Oz along with his ex -wife, Margalit, released in the brief first high fire, in November 2023. His partner at that time, Efrat Katz, died that same October 7, apparently by Shots of an Israeli military helicopter against the car in which their kidnappers escaped, according to an investigation of the Air Force.
Each step of the truce is observed with magnifying glass, with shocks and samples of distrust that do not throw it, however, by land. Israel, for example, now asks Hamas to clarify whether the Bibas family (including two two and five -year -old children who also have Argentine nationality) is alive or dead. The Islamist movement communicated this week to the mediators the state of the 33 hostages that the first phase will last in the month and a half. Eight are dead, but did not specify which ones.
Milestone
While the details of the new exchange were closed, Witkoff visited this Thursday, escorted by the Israeli troops, the Netzarim corridor, a military space that cuts Gaza perpendicularly and that monitor US private contractors, to supervise the return of the Palestinians displaced to the North of Gaza. It is a milestone: no high position in the country had stepped on Gaza – in Hamas since 2007 – in almost two decades.
Israeli media have realized the visit, but images have not been disseminated. Yes, instead, from the beginning of the meeting, at the last minute of the day, between Witkoff and Netanyahu. Neither of the two governments has reported at the moment about their content. According to Israeli public television, Trump’s envoy urged his interlocutor to take the fire to the end. Your message: Take into solving your internal political problems and I will take care that Israel’s security concerns are taken into account in the negotiation. The leader of the main ultra -nationalist partner of Netanyahu, the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, says that Netanyahu has guaranteed him (in exchange for remaining in the coalition) that he will only fulfill the first phase of the agreement. Smotrich emphasizes that he will not only leave, but will also do everything possible to break down the government, if he ends up breaking his word. The US is, with Qatar and Egypt, one of the guarantors of the pact.
The meeting is produced at the Trump gift festival to Netanyahu in the just nine days it has been in the White House. First, the annulment of two measures of Joe Biden (the sanctions against violent Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Jordan. , despite human rights violations: “We help you a lot and I’m sure he [Al Sisi] It would help us. He is my friend. Live in a difficult neighborhood. But I think he would do it and I think the king [Abdalá II] from Jordan would also. ”
The last gift of the US president has a privilege shape. Netanyahu will be the first foreign leader who receives in the White House from his return to power. It will be next Tuesday, as reported by the office of the Israeli Prime Minister, which will leave for Washington on Sunday from Tel Aviv airport and will return on Thursday. It has not specified the agenda, still subject to changes.