The wait seems a little longer each time. On Monday evening, the fourth handover of hostages by Hamas was still pending, although the reasons for the delay were not known. In the afternoon, a list of detainees eligible for release had been released to the families concerned by the Prime Minister's Office.
Among these newly freed were at least three French minors. Twelve-year-old Ethan was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz along with his mother, Bat Cheva, and sister. The women managed to flee, but the young boy was taken to Gaza after being trapped on a motorcycle between two kidnappers. "I don't wish on anyone to go through such an ordeal," his mother said a few days later. His grandmother Jocelyn Goldapper moved heaven and earth calling on Emmanuel Macron to intercede. "I'm convinced he can do something," she said a few weeks ago. On Monday afternoon on LCI, she said she was "relieved" by Ethan, who she said was "on the list." However, she remained cautious as long as she "did not see the children getting out of the Red Cross car".
Intense negotiations
Ethan was not to be alone Sahar Kalderon, 16, and her brother Erez, 12, were also theoretically supposed to be free. The two French teenagers had also been captured in the bloody assault on Nir Oz, along with the father, Ofir, and probably their cousin. At the same time, Hamas says it has received the names of the Palestinian prisoners to be released, including three women and 3 minors. According to the Israeli government, 30 hostages remained in Hamas custody as of Monday morning, including 184 foreigners and 14 dual nationals.
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The releases are not expected to be the last as the truce, which was due to end at 8 a.m. on Tuesday morning, was renewed after a day of intense negotiations. Uncertainty lingered for a long time, but in the end, Hamas, Qatar and the United States, the main mediators, announced a two-day extension on Monday night. Israel did not immediately confirm the extension.
As soon as it was signed, the first truce was intended to be extended. On Sunday night, Hamas said it was "seeking to extend the truce beyond its four days," with the aim of "increasing the number of released prisoners." On Monday morning, a government spokesman said Israel, where resistance appeared to be more intense, had also offered an "option" to extend the truce.
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According to an Egyptian security source, quoted by AFP, the hiatus, which made it still uncertain whether it would be maintained, concerned the length of the extension. Israel reportedly insisted on a day-to-day renewal, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz, while the Palestinian movement was in favor of an extension of "two to four days." The other difficulty was the establishment of the list of hostages to be released during these additional days, which may have delayed the announcement.
The principle of an extension was all the more quickly acquired in Israel because of strong pressure from the hostages' relatives, who made their release an absolute priority. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to take this into account, without offending his most right-wing electorate, which places the crushing of Hamas at the top of his ambitions. "There are provisions for the release of 10 more hostages every day and that's a blessing," he said Sunday night. The agreement allows for its renewal and, in this case, the daily release of a dozen hostages, in exchange for about thirty Palestinian prisoners.
'A glimmer of hope'
On Sunday, in his first visit to the Gaza Strip since the start of the war, he called for "victory" and asked the government for a "war" budget of NIS 30 billion ($7.3 billion). "But we will, after the agreement, return to our goal: to eliminate Hamas and make sure that the Gaza Strip is no longer what it used to be," he added, assuring that he had announced this to the US president.
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The pressure also comes from the outside. Joe Biden had thus stated his goal "to ensure that this pause continues". The White House immediately "welcomed" the extension of the truce. After the US president, the European Union's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, also called for a "lasting" truce in order to work on a "political solution" to the conflict. Neither has so far invoked a ceasefire, a demand supported by several European countries, including France, but rejected by others.
The truce has already allowed hundreds of trucks loaded with humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip, besieged and devastated by seven weeks of Israeli bombardment, but the needs are still immense. Convoys from Egypt have offered residents a small respite, but the humanitarian situation remains "dangerous" and the needs are "unprecedented", the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Sunday. For UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the announcement of the extension of the truce is therefore "a glimmer of hope and humanity".