Hamas the bodies of four Israeli hostages to the International Committee of the International Red Cross, which has led them to the crossing of Kerem Shalom, between Israel and Gaza, so that an Israeli forensic team effects an initial identification of the bodies, before taking them to the National Center, near Tel Aviv. Unlike the controversial ceremonies of previous deliveries, Hamas has done this without scenarios, far from the media and in the dark of the morning, as Israel demanded.
Shortly after the delivery of the bodies, the images showed a first bus with inmates out of the offer prison, in the West Bank. The Israeli authorities have projected in a nearby building an amazing message in Arabic accompanied by the drawing of a giant eye: “Our eyes are looking at you.” The released Palestinian prisoners have arrived in Ramala, where a crowd receives them.
The vast majority of the 642 inmates who have begun to offer are the ones that Israel should have released last Saturday, after receiving six hostages alive, but canceled it (in violation of the high fire), until receiving guarantees that the Islamist movement would not organize “humiliating ceremonies” in this exchange, the last of the first phase of the high fire, which concludes on Saturday
The exchange was agreed quite differently from the previous ones. On the one hand, because Hamas has renounced the most criticized time – ceremonies that he made with each delivery of the hostages and that led Netanyahu to breach last Saturday his part of the agreement. On the other, for the displacement of a team of forensic medicine to Kerem Shalom, to initially identify the bodies. It is a consequence of the distrust between the parties, after the error, last week, in the identification of one of the bodies – in the Forensic Center, near Tel Aviv – and the reverse of Netanyahu.
The Red Cross gave Israel the bodies of the Hostages Tsaji Idan, Itzik Elgrat, Shlomo Mantzur and Ohad Yahalomi. The majority (445) of inmates that Israel is releaseing will be taken to Gaza because they were captured in the waves of arrests during the invasion that Israel began in October 2023, following the attack of Hamas. There are also 151 with perpetual chains for attacks against Israelis and long and 24 women and minor sentences, according to the Palestinian prisoners club.
Last exchange of the first phase
It is, in principle, the last exchange of the 42 days of the first phase of the truce, which Netanyahu intends to extend as many. It has been blocking the negotiation of the second phase for three weeks, which would imply the end of the war in Gaza, in violation of the terms of the covenant. Hamas has pointed out on Wednesday that he has not received “proposal” from Israel on the subject, despite his “disposition and interest” in getting ahead. It has also underlined Egyptian mediators the “need for a full and precise commitment to all the provisions and stages” of the Alto El Fuego, referring to other Israeli breaches, such as the entry of caravans to shelter part of the hundreds of thousands who have lost their homes. This Wednesday, and for the second time in the almost six weeks of truce, a projectile has been released from Gaza, falling into the strip itself, in an incident “under review”, the Israeli army reported.
In Israel, the day has been marked by the burial of the mother and the two children of the Argentine-Israelí Bibas family. Thousands of Israeli – with the national flag, photos of the three or orange balloons, the color symbol of the fight for family liberation – accompanied or waited for the passage of the convoy with the coffins, near Gaza.
Effri, sister of Yardén Bibas, the father of the family, had asked not to go any minister and described “torture” to find out the press of details about the death of his relatives. He formally presented a petition through his lawyer so that they did not spread. Netanyahu has done it up to three times, the last one in an appearance showing a photo of the family.
This Wednesday, at the funeral, Offi has released a message: “They could save you ,. We lost. Our photo of victory will never come true. Our fight against enemies will be eternal, but we must always sanctify life, love for others, respect for the dead. Otherwise, we will lose what we are, ”he said.
Four days after the end of the first phase of the high fire and without a second that gives continuity, Israel now raises Hamas a sort of ultimatum with three options: to disarm and exile their leaders; Continue to run out its only negotiating asset (the around 60 hostages that will remain) without guarantees that it will lead to the end of the war; Or suffer the resumption, even more violent, of the bombings on Gaza, according to an official Israeli source cited by the local media.
Actually, the Islamist movement must continue to deliver kidnapped if you want to avoid the latter. If for March 8 – that is, on the first Saturday (usual day of the exchanges) after the official first phase – Hamas does not release any alive, Netanyahu will high the fire as a settlement, according to the source. These are conditions that are not included in the high -fire agreement that Israel and Hamas sealed in January, on the eve of the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House.
In the previous 16 months, the war in Gaza has left more than 48,000 dead Palestinians (especially women and minors); An unprecedented devastation since World War II (90% of buildings are damaged or destroyed, according to UN data); and the use of hunger as a gun. His eventual resumption would be, according to the source, more intense, with “a new Minister of Defense [en Israel]a new chief of the General Staff, all the necessary weapons and full legitimacy, one hundred percent, of the Trump administration ”.
The extension of up to 42 days (as Israel poses) of the first phase breaches the commitment to start withdrawing the border troops between Gaza and Egypt (which defined for months as a concession for which it would not happen) and keep an ultra -nationalist partner, religious Zionism, in the coalition. Its leader, Bezalel Smotrich, has already pointed out that Netanyahu promised them, at the beginning of the truce, that there would be no second phase, and has warned that the minority government will leave if it finally happens.
The negotiation runs directly between Israel and the United States, one of the guarantors of the pact. Specifically, between Netanyahu’s right hand, Ron Dermer, and Trump’s envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who said Tuesday at a conference that hopes to travel to the Middle East next Sunday, as cited by the middle Axios.
