Tag: Hamas

There is a four-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and today is the second of those days.

24 hostages who had been detained by Hamas for 48 days were freed on Friday, the first day.
Among them were ten Thai people, thirteen Israelis, and one Filipino.

39 Palestinian detainees were freed a few hours later as part of the agreement.

As part of the arrangement mediated by Qatar, a total of 150 Palestinian detainees and 50 Israeli hostages are anticipated to be released.

On Friday, the largest humanitarian convoy since the conflict began arrived in Gaza with food, gasoline, and medical supplies.

Israel declared that the northern part of the Strip was still a combat zone and forbade Gazans from returning there.

There were rumours that those attempting to enter Gaza from the north were fired upon. On October 7, 1,200 individuals were murdered in Hamas attacks, and around 240 more were taken prisoner.

Since then, Israel’s retaliation campaign has claimed the lives of almost 14,500 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which is governed by Hamas.

Israel and Hamas have agreed to stop fighting for four days and release at least 50 hostages, including women and children, held in Gaza. Qatar, who helped with the negotiations, announced this on Wednesday.

The agreement, which depended on Israel’s cabinet agreeing, comes after several weeks of discussions with the United States and Egypt. This is a big step to reduce tensions after almost seven weeks of fighting between Israel and Hamas.

Qatar said that the hostages will be set free if Israeli jails release some Palestinian women and children.

The break will also let more humanitarian trucks and supplies, like fuel for helping people, to come in.

Israel’s leaders agreed to the deal very early on Wednesday morning after a long and intense meeting that lasted about six hours.

Hamas has 239 people captive in Gaza, and they come from 26 different countries, according to the Israeli military.

Only a few Israeli hostages were released before the agreement. On October 20, two Americans named Judith Tai Raanan and her 17-year-old daughter Natalie Raanan were let go because of their health conditions. This happened after talks between Qatar and Hamas.

Shortly after, two women from Israel, named Nurit Cooper and Yocheved Lifshitz, were also set free.

Qatar’s main negotiator, Minister of State Mohammed Al-Khulaifi, said that the agreement should make the world work together quickly to keep making progress in peace talks.

Hamas said in a statement that 150 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails would be released as part of the deal, but later took back the statement without giving a reason.

Israel said the truce could last longer than planned if more hostages are released. For every 10 more hostages freed, an extra day of truce would be added.

However, it also showed that Israel intends to start their air and ground attacks again to fully get rid of Hamas once the hostage releases are finished.

The Israeli army is still figuring out when they will stop fighting. Colonel Jonathan Conricus spoke to CNN on Wednesday morning.

“We will keep fighting Hamas until the Israeli government tells us to stop. When they do, we will follow their instructions. ”

The Israeli government made the deal because the families of the hostages pressured them to take action. They wanted answers from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A lot of hostages were taken by force when Hamas attacked border communities near the Gaza Strip and the Nova music festival.

Israel stopped things from coming into Gaza and attacked it. This caused a big problem for the people there.

Over 12,000 people have died in Gaza since October 7, according to the government’s press office.

Family members of the hostages held by Hamas were relieved and hopeful as they waited to see if their loved ones would be released. They were not sure yet when it would happen.

Shoshany said, “I really hope to see someone come out of there alive. ” We want to see our family again. This is all we want and I really hope this is just the beginning in this situation.

Liz Hirsh Naftali, who is Abigail Edan’s great-aunt, said on CNN that it has been really hard having Abigail, a 3-year-old US citizen, held by Hamas.

“We’ve been worrying, wondering, praying, and hoping for the past seven weeks,” she said.

The family wants Abigail, the youngest American kidnapped by Hamas, to come home by Friday for her fourth birthday.

“We have to see Abigail come out before we can believe it,” Naftali said.

US President Joe Biden was happy about the agreement and said it will bring back more American hostages. He promised to keep working until all hostages are released.

Ten Americans are still missing. Among them are two women and a 3-year-old girl. This was confirmed by a senior official in the government. The person in charge did not say the girl’s name.

The agreement says at least 50 hostages will be freed, but it also encourages the release of everyone, the official said.

The agreement for the hostages includes a break, a pause to help people, for four or five days. “And if more hostages are released by Hamas, there is a possibility that the extension could be prolonged,” the official said.

A US official also said that the hostages will be brought out from different places, but they didn’t give any more information.

The IDF spokesperson, Conricus, said that the people who will be let go in the agreement are all Israelis. Some of them also have citizenship in another country. He said that the Palestinian prisoners who are going to be freed are not very bad criminals.

Approximately 8,300 Palestinian people are in Israeli jails, according to Qadura Fares, who leads a group that helps prisoners.

Out of 8,300 people, over 3,000 are being kept in detention in Israel without being told the reasons or having a legal process.

Two hostage bodies that were taken during the October 7 massacre close to the al-Shifa hospital have been found by the IDF.

After being slain by Hamas militants, Israeli troops found the body of 19-year-old Corporal Noa Marciano at “a structure adjacent to” the facility.

When terrorists took control of the Nahal Oz base, the youngster was serving there.

Four days after the soldier was held hostage, Hamas released video of her speaking to the camera.

She gave her identity and acknowledged that she was being held captive in Gaza, the embattled Palestinian territory.

The horrifying footage then switched to graphic pictures of what the terrorists claimed to be Marciano’s corpse.

Her body was discovered and returned to Israel, where testing verified her identification, according to the IDF.

It follows the discovery of Yehudit Weiss’s body in a building next to the hospital. According to the IDF, Weiss was abducted from her Be’eri home.

The IDF said: “The national task before our eyes is to locate the missing and return the abducted persons home.

“The IDF is operating alongside and in full coordination with the relevant national and security institutions in order to pursue these tasks. 

“We will not cease from the mission until it will be completed.”

Weiss’s date of death and cause of death were not disclosed by the IDF, according to The Times of Israel.

On October 7, the mother of five was kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri.

In their home’s safe room, her husband Shmulik Weiss was discovered dead from his murder.

According to Shani Louk’s family, Israel has also killed the Hamas monster that paraded Shani Louk’s nude body through Gaza and spat on it.

The mother of the 22-year-old tattoo artist who was killed allegedly informed a prominent rabbi that Israel’s military had eliminated her daughter’s attacker.

Shani was last seen in footage showing her dead and partially nude body being dragged through Gaza in a truck while Hamas continued its cross-border murderous rampage.

The allegations are still pending official confirmation.

The desperate parents of 32 children who were kidnapped by Hamas earlier this month begged the terror group to free them last night.

The terrified children are being detained underground in the 311-mile Gaza Metro system of tunnels while Israel fights to destroy the Islamic militants and return them home.

It happens at the largest hospital in Gaza, al Shifa Hospital, where Israeli troops allegedly found laptops with images and videos of hostages on them.

During the horrific October 7 massacre, Hamas abducted dozens of victims, and they haven’t been heard from since.

However, there is new hope for the detainees because, according to Israeli soldiers, they have discovered photographic proof of them at al-Shifa hospital.

Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus told The BBC during a tour of the facility: “We uncovered a lot of computers and other equipment which could really shed light on the current situation, hopefully regarding hostages as well.”

He said the devices were found alongside a number of military books and pamphlets the IDF believe suggest Hamas terrorists were there “within the last few days”.

Lt Col Conricus said a map was also found that appeared to mark entry and exit routes from the hospital.

Israel has claimed the hospital is the “beating heart” of Hamas, and this week launched a raid to hunt down terrorists using it as cover.

IDF footage showed troops taking in humanitarian as thousands of patients, doctors and displaced Palestinians have been trapped inside the besieged complex for weeks.

This event destroyed Israel‘s belief that it was unbeatable and had a strong military. It made all citizens feel less safe.

But it didn’t seem very special in the beginning.

When I saw the messages on my phone in the early morning, it said that rockets were coming from Gaza. We didn’t know how many rockets there were. I sent a message to my coworkers, some of whom were not at work because of the Jewish holidays, to tell them that I would go to the office.

Very quickly, I found it difficult to understand the effect of my words as I spoke them.

The continuous firing of missiles made me rush in and out of the shelter at the office. It later became evident that this was just a distraction for a highly unique, complicated, and well-prepared set of attacks.

We witnessed alarming pictures of Hamas fighters using motorbikes to get through holes in Gaza’s fence, using paragliders to enter southern Israel, attacking heavily protected military bases, and filming themselves in the gardens of overwhelmed kibbutzim.

During a party, people called Israeli TV stations to share their experiences of being in a terrible situation at the Nova Music Festival. They were hiding from gunmen who were causing violence and death. Scared people recorded videos of groups of armed Palestinians in the city of Sderot.

This was the worst day ever in Israel’s 75-year history, with many people being killed in a cruel and planned way. Videos later appeared from some of the kibbutzim near Gaza, showing the brutal killing of whole families. In the end, around 1,400 people are believed to have died.

The timing of this attack was very important because it happened almost exactly 50 years after a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria on a very important day for Jewish people called Yom Kippur. This previous attack caused a big war in the region.

The intense sadness and surprise for regular Israelis, which can still be seen today, was very clear when I visited Ashkelon on October 8th.

Israeli security forces were fighting against very armed men near us, and there were loud alarms going off. At the hospital, parents were searching and crying for their missing children. They were very sad and upset.
“A mother in great pain yelled, ‘Destroy Gaza. ‘”

At the beginning of the war, people wanted to get back at their enemies and really wanted Israel to show its strength again. However, surveys show that people are now worried that intense bombing and a large-scale invasion could harm hostages taken by Hamas, which makes the situation more complicated.

Around 240 individuals, including Israelis and people from other countries, as well as both military personnel and civilians of varying ages, are believed to be held captive. Protests and requests to bring them back are becoming more pressing.

After going through the terrible experience of the Hamas attacks in Nir Oz, Hadas Kalderon’s life has completely changed. She is now desperately trying to bring her two children, Erez (who recently turned 12) and Sahar (who is 16), as well as her ex-husband Ofer, back home. Her mom, Carmela Dan, and her niece, Noya, who were taken away, have been discovered dead.

Hadas recently told the BBC that she is too busy fighting for her children and their father who is still alive, so she doesn’t have time to grieve for her mother and niece. She wants Israel to stop fighting until the hostages are safe.

Israel has said no to stopping the fighting until all the hostages are freed, and they are still bombing Gaza from above.

The health ministry in Gaza, which is run by Hamas, said that over 10,000 people have died in the Palestinian area since Israel began bombing it last month.

The ministry said that over 4,000 children were among the people who died.

The surprise on 7 October was made worse by the fact that Israel, which has the strongest military in the Middle East and excellent intelligence agencies, did not realize the attacks were going to happen. A lot of ideas they believed for a long time, along with political leaders, were actually very wrong.

Israel left Gaza in 2005 and Hamas took over in 2007. Israel has been trying to prevent Hamas and Islamic Jihad, who are both considered terrorist groups, from being a threat.

Many defense experts often describe Israel’s approach in Gaza as “mowing the lawn. ” The idea was that Israeli forces could reduce the abilities of the armed groups occasionally, which would result in people getting hurt or killed.

There have been many big fights in the years 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2021.

But, in two recent incidents of violence in August of last year and May of this year, where the Islamic Jihad group was targeted, Israel’s military falsely believed that Hamas did not participate. The common belief was that it did not want the situation to get worse.
Israel wanted to keep things calm, so they let around 18,000 people from Gaza have permits to work and also let Qatar help by giving aid and paying the salaries of Hamas workers.

That evaluation turned out to be very wrong and it was dangerous. It is now evident that Hamas was secretly waiting and acquiring more powerful weapons, like rockets that can reach farther distances, and drones. They also worked on making their underground tunnels better.

The belief that Israeli technology had successfully minimized the danger posed by Hamas, especially with the expensive barrier constructed around Gaza, equipped with cameras, sensors, and a strong concrete foundation to protect against tunnels, was proven incorrect. Last month, it is said that thousands of fighters managed to get through the fence in around 30 different spots.

Because the war is still happening, it is too early to provide a complete list of the errors that caused the events on October 7th.

Israel is very sad right now. Some of the dead people were badly burned or hurt, and we still don’t know who they are. More soldiers are also dying in the fighting in Gaza.

But it is probable that there will be an investigation after the war. After a very chaotic year in Israeli politics, people might want to know more about the job of the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel needs to effectively achieve its new war goals in Gaza, which are to dismantle Hamas and release the hostages. They also need to handle the increasing dangers presented by Iran and its allies in the area.

One month later, the news about the violent events in southern Israel continues without stopping.

According to a member of a Hamas group visiting Moscow, the hostages captured from Israel during a surprise attack cannot be released until both sides agree to stop fighting, as reported by local media.

The Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that Abu Hamid said Hamas needed more time to find all the people who had been taken.

“They took many people, mostly regular people, and we need to take time to locate them in Gaza and then let them go,” Hamid said.

Hamas has let go of four hostages until now, citing reasons of humanity. Judith and Natalie Raanan, a mother and daughter, were the first to be released on 20 October. Yocheved Lifschitz, who is 85 years old, and Nurit Cooper, who is 79 years old, were released on Monday.

More update on this story soon…