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- The truce between Israel and Hamas enters its sixth day after additional
hostages were released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. - Mediators are pushing for a more “sustainable” ceasefire and
hoping for a durable arrangement. - The final 24 hours of the extended agreement begin later on Wednesday,
with one more exchange of hostages for prisoners expected.
A truce
between Israel and Hamas enters its sixth day Wednesday after additional
hostages were released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, with mediators
pushing for a more “sustainable” ceasefire.
After a
48-hour extension of an initial four-day truce, a new group of 12 hostages was
freed from Gaza on Tuesday, with 30 Palestinians released by Israel.
The final
24 hours of the extended agreement begins later Wednesday, with one more
exchange of hostages for prisoners expected, but mediator Qatar said it was
hoping for a more durable arrangement.
“Our
main focus right now, and our hope, is to reach a sustainable truce that will
lead to further negotiations and eventually to an end… to this war,”
foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari told a Doha news conference.
He added:
However, we are working with what we have. And what we have right now is the provision to the agreement that allows us to extend days as long as Hamas is able to guarantee the release of at least 10 hostages.
That
provision has allowed the two-day extension that saw 10 Israeli hostages
released from Gaza overnight Tuesday, along with two Thais freed outside the
scope of the agreement.
An AFP
journalist saw masked and armed fighters from Hamas and Islamic Jihad hand over
hostages to Red Cross officials in Rafah, near the border with Egypt.
The Israeli
hostages freed were all women, including 17-year-old Mia Leimberg, who returned
to Israel with her mother and aunt.
The three
were all abducted from kibbutz Nir Yitzhak, and the teenager was seen after her
release holding her dog Bella.
READ | DEVELOPING: Israel frees 30 Palestinians as part of truce deal – Israel Prison Service
There have
been few direct accounts so far of the conditions faced by hostages, but the
grandmother of 12-year-old Eitan Yahalomi, who was released on Monday, said the
boy had been held in solitary confinement for 16 days.
“The
days that he was alone were horrible,” Esther Yaeli told Israeli news
website Walla. “Now Eitan appears very withdrawn.”
‘High risk of
famine’
So far, 60
Israeli hostages have been freed from Gaza under the terms of the deal, with a
Russian-Israeli, 20 Thai and one Filipino freed outside the scope of the
agreement.
In return,
180 Palestinian prisoners – all women and minors – have been released.
Among them
was 14-year-old Ahmad Salaima who returned to his home in east Jerusalem to
cheers and hugs from relatives.
“When
Ahmed was in prison, we couldn’t visit him, even though he’s the youngest
Palestinian prisoner at just 14 years old,” his father Nayef said.
The truce
agreement has brought a temporary halt to fighting sparked by Hamas’s 7 October
attack, which killed 1 200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to
Israeli officials.
Israel’s
subsequent aerial and land campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 15 000 people,
according to Hamas officials, and rendered large parts of the territory’s north
uninhabitable.
The World
Food Programme warned Tuesday that Gaza’s population faced a “high risk of
famine if WFP is not able to provide continued access to food.”
Conditions
in the territory are “catastrophic,” the agency’s Middle East
director said, while a spokesperson for the UN children’s agency UNICEF said
aid entering Gaza under the truce deal was “not even enough for
triage.”
The dire
humanitarian situation has piled on the pressure for a more lasting pause or
even an end to the fighting, though Israel has made clear it sees the truce as
a brief interlude to ensure hostage releases before its war continues.
The head of
the CIA and the director of Israel’s Mossad spy agency were in Doha to discuss
the truce with Qatar’s prime minister, a source briefed on their visit said,
asking not to be named because of the talks’ sensitivity.
The
discussions aim “to build on the progress of the extended humanitarian
pause agreement and to initiate further discussions about the next phase of a
potential deal,” the source added.
‘We are fed up’
On Tuesday,
Hamas and Israel traded accusations of truce violations, but Qatar’s Ansari
said the “minimal breaches” did not “harm the essence of the
agreement.”
Israel’s
allies have been wary of calling for a complete end to military operations
designed to eliminate Hamas, but foreign ministers from the Group of Seven have
urged a longer truce.
“We
support the further extension of this pause and future pauses as needed to
enable assistance to be scaled up, and to facilitate the release of all
hostages,” they said in a statement Tuesday.
Washington
has also warned Israel that any fresh offensive in southern Gaza must be
“done in a way… not designed to produce significant further
displacement,” a senior US official said.
An
estimated 1.7 million Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to leave their
homes so far, more than half the territory’s population.
“I
hope this truce will lead to a complete ceasefire, because we are fed up of
sleeping outdoors in the rain, of losing our loved ones and having to
flee,” said Umm Mohammed, who was driven from her home in northern Gaza by
the assault.
The truce
in Gaza has not ended violence in the occupied West Bank, where two Palestinian
teenagers were killed in clashes with Israeli troops on Tuesday, the
Palestinian health ministry said.
Since the 7
October attacks, more than 230 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank
by Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to the ministry.
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