Status: 30.11.2023, 16:18 PM
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A Palestinian man sits in an armchair in front of a destroyed building in Gaza City. © Mohammed Hajjar/AP/dpa
The guns have been silent in the Gaza war for almost a week. The people of the Gaza Strip are finally receiving help - but there is little hope for peace.
Gaza/Tel Aviv - With the ceasefire in the Gaza war, Israel and the Islamist Hamas have each achieved important goals for themselves: the release of dozens of Israeli hostages and the release of more than 200 Palestinian prisoners. The suffering population in the Gaza Strip, on the other hand, is receiving significantly more aid than before. But it remains unclear what will happen next. Questions and answers on the ceasefire:
What are the chances of an extension of the ceasefire beyond Friday?
The mediators Qatar and Egypt are trying to extend the ceasefire again. In principle, Israel and Hamas had agreed last week on a time frame for the ceasefire of a maximum of ten days. This window ends Monday morning. Israeli government security adviser Mark Regev told CNN that if Hamas released 10 Israeli hostages, the ceasefire would be extended by one day at a time. Israel insists that they are living hostages. The question is whether Hamas will meet this demand.
According to Israeli media reports, Hamas presented a list of eight living hostages on Thursday morning, shortly before the deadline. In addition, negotiations are underway for the return of three bodies, it said. The U.S. government said on Monday that it believed that not all hostages were in the hands of Hamas. CNN reported an estimated 40 hostages, citing unnamed diplomatic sources.
How many Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners have been exchanged so far?
By midday on Thursday, 97 hostages taken by Hamas to the Gaza Strip had been exchanged for 210 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. Among the released hostages are 73 Israelis - including 14 with German citizenship - as well as 23 people from Thailand and one person from the Philippines. The Palestinian detainees are women and minors, the youngest of whom are 14 years old, and have been charged with throwing firebombs, arson and stabbing, among other charges.
How many hostages are still in the Gaza Strip?
According to the Times of Israel, Israel suspects that around 145 hostages, including 15 women and children, are still in the Gaza Strip. According to earlier figures, there must also be about six hostages with German passports among them. According to Foreign Ministry spokesman Majid Al-Ansari on Tuesday, Qatar cannot confirm the exact number of remaining hostages. Originally, according to Israeli information, around 240 hostages had been abducted.
What is known about the conditions of hostage?
Relatives of hostages have reported in Israeli and international media that their family members were not ill-treated in captivity. But there were days without food. Sometimes the abductees had to wait an hour and a half before they were allowed to go to the toilet. On some days, there was only flatbread or only a small portion of rice. They would have slept on benches or chairs pushed together. A relative of a 7-year-old boy who had been released reported that children had been threatened with a gun to keep them quiet. After his release, the boy reported that he had been forced to watch videos of the terrorist attack on Israel on October 16. He also had to spend the first <> days of his captivity alone in a closed room.
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What about male hostages and the soldiers?
So far, there have been no announcements about a hostage agreement for the male hostages and the soldiers. It can be assumed that Hamas will make much higher demands, especially for soldiers, than for women and children. There is already speculation in the Israeli media that the army may try to free the soldiers by force in the end. According to the radio, around ten soldiers were abducted from their military bases on 7 October.
In 2011, the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped in 2006 and held captive by Hamas for several years, was released in exchange for more than 1000,<> Palestinian prisoners. The current head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Jihia al-Sinwar, was also released.
Can Palestinians now move freely in the Gaza Strip?
No. Israel has effectively divided the Gaza Strip in two through its ground offensive in the north. Shortly after the ceasefire began, soldiers were deployed to prevent displaced Palestinians from crossing from the south of the Gaza Strip to their former homes in the north to inspect them or check on relatives. According to Hamas sources, two people were killed by gunfire and others were wounded while trying to reach the north in the central Gaza Strip. In the southern part, however, there was largely freedom of movement.
What does the ceasefire mean for civilians in the Gaza Strip?
The suffering people in Gaza are completely worn down after about seven weeks of war. Aid workers speak of a dramatic humanitarian crisis. According to UN figures, around 1.8 million people, or about three-quarters of the population, are now internally displaced. There is a lack of pretty much everything: food, water and medicine are very scarce, as well as the chances of medical treatment. As a result of the massive Israeli airstrikes and the ground offensive in the northern part, almost 15,000 people were killed and more than 36,000 people were injured, according to the Hamas authorities. The figures cannot be independently verified at present, but are considered credible by the UN and diplomats overall. Since the beginning of the ceasefire, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, 1132,<> trucks carrying aid have arrived in the cordoned-off coastal strip as of Wednesday.
What is the extent of the destruction in the Gaza Strip?
Enormous, that much is certain, as countless photos from the war zone show. Thomas White, UNRWA's director for Gaza, described the city of Gaza as a "ghost town," with all streets deserted and the scale of destruction enormous. According to U.S. researchers, between 67,000 and 88,000 buildings have been damaged since the beginning of the war. This is the result of an analysis by the Decentralized Damage Mapping Group (DDMG), in which a group of US scientists examined the attacks in the coastal area using satellite data. In the northern Gaza Strip, 50 to 60 percent of the buildings were damaged.
Could the ceasefire lead to an end to the war?
It doesn't look like that at the moment. Israel has made it very clear that it considers the ceasefire only as such - as a pause. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly emphasized that the war will continue until Israel has achieved all its goals. These included the elimination of Hamas and the return of all hostages. In addition, Gaza must no longer pose a threat to Israel. Netanyahu announced on Wednesday that he would resume fighting when "this phase of the return of our hostages is complete."
Hamas, on the other hand, ultimately wants to establish an Islamic state on the territory of all historic Palestine. It wants to destroy the State of Israel. A spokesman for the terrorist organization has also threatened to repeat the October 7 massacres. The U.S., but also Germany, have so far supported Israel's rejection of a long-term ceasefire.
What is the biggest international concern about a continuation of the war?
That the number of civilian casualties will rise drastically again. Of the approximately 1.8 million internally displaced persons according to UN figures, many are in overcrowded emergency shelters in the south of the coastal area. The World Health Organization has already warned of the massive spread of diseases that could ultimately cause more deaths than the fighting. If, as announced, the Israeli army continues its attacks on Hamas targets and then increasingly targets the south, it is questionable how the population can be protected. In addition, it is unclear how the supply of humanitarian goods to the people in need will still be possible at all.
What is Israel's long-term plan for the Gaza Strip?
That's unclear. Prime Minister Netanyahu said that even after a victory over Hamas, Israel must continue to play a role in securing the territory. At the same time, the United States, arguably Israel's most important ally, has issued an explicit warning against a renewed occupation of the Gaza Strip. The U.S. government wants the Palestinian Authority to be responsible for the Gaza Strip in addition to the West Bank. The long-term hope is a two-state solution, i.e. a peaceful coexistence of Israel and a Palestinian state - which seems unrealistic at the moment. Dpa