- The Washington Times - Thursday, November 23, 2023

The fighting in Gaza is set to cease for four days beginning at 7 a.m. local time on Friday as part of a deal brokered Thursday in Qatar that will mean the release of at least 50 Israeli hostages held by Hamas since the terror group’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.

A spokesman for Qatar’s foreign ministry made the announcement Thursday during a news conference. Majed al-Ansari said 13 hostages would be released about 4 p.m. local time on Friday. At the end of the four-day cessation, at least 50 women and children will be released from Gaza, he said.

The discussions went on throughout the night and concluded early Thursday morning, he said.

“The meetings went very well and in a positive environment,” Mr. al-Ansari said. “The result, of course, was the implementation plan of the agreement which we have always said needed to be something that is concrete and ready to create a safe environment for the release of the hostages.”

Officials in Qatar didn’t say how many Palestinians being held by Israel would be exchanged but the initial plan called for three Palestinians to be released for every Israeli citizen.

Israeli officials on Thursday confirmed they had been given a list of hostages abducted by Hamas militants who could be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.

“The responsible officials are checking the details of the list and are currently in contact with all of the families,” according to a statement on Thursday from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government has faced mounting domestic pressure to secure the release of some 240 people taken in the Hamas rampage last month.

Israeli hostages’ family members told the Arutz Sheva news network that they have yet to receive any details from the government about how their loved ones have fared in captivity inside the Palestinian enclave.

“We don’t want to inform the families beforehand because we don’t trust Hamas. To cause distress to the family would be the worst thing,” an Israeli government official told Artuz Sheva, known in the West as Israel National News. “As soon as the people are in our hands, we will inform the families and bring them to the meeting point at the hospital.”

At a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Netanyahu said the agreement for a temporary cease-fire was only a stage in their campaign to eradicate Hamas and ensure that the Gaza Strip would no longer be in a position to threaten Israel.

“I want to be clear, the war continues. We will continue it until we achieve all its goals,” Mr. Netanyahu said.

If the agreement holds and the hostages are released, it would be the biggest diplomatic breakthrough since the war erupted last month. The reprieve in the fighting could be extended if the Palestinians are able to locate additional Israeli children and civilian women inside Gaza, officials said.

A senior Israeli source told the Times of Israel newspaper that Hamas’ primary goal in the negotiations was to maximize the duration of the pause in fighting and said fuel and humanitarian aid were not their central concerns.

At first, Hamas wanted a monthlong halt in the fighting but later reduced that demand to four days. But extending the pause beyond four days remains a central goal of the militant group, the Times of Israel reported.

On Thursday, Israeli officials reported that their forces uncovered a rocket manufacturing operation located beneath a mosque in northern Gaza.

The troops discovered explosives and materials used to construct the weapons. They said Hamas doesn’t take into consideration the safety of its own people when it comes to stockpiling weapons like anti-tank missiles, hand grenades and AK-47 rifles.

“Weapons have been found under little girls’ beds, in hospitals, next to classrooms, and in mosque basements. Hamas knows no limits when it comes to harming innocent people,” Naomi Levy, a government spokesperson, said in a statement. “Hamas has been playing this game for a long time now. It has been using civilian places for murder and terrorism purposes so that when IDF would seek to strike at the enemy, it would find itself having to attack places in close proximity to innocent civilians.”

The pause would allow for more humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza through the Egyptian and Israeli border crossing points. But the agreement apparently doesn’t specify the amount of supplies that would be allowed through, an Israeli official told The New York Times.

The Israeli Air Force will not fly over southern Gaza during the temporary halt in fighting and will pause flights for six hours daily over the northern end of the enclave, The New York Times reported.

Israel responded to the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 with thousands of airstrikes and launched a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip that has killed at least 12,000 people, according to figures released by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry that don’t distinguish between civilian and military casualties.

Even as it considers a temporary halt in air and ground attacks against Hamas in Gaza, Israel is continuing to fight a battle for public opinion about their cause.

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares was among a group of international legal officials invited to Israel last week to examine evidence of the atrocities committed by the terror group during their rampage that killed at least 1,200 people and resulted in hundreds of others being held as hostages.

Mr. Miyares joined prosecutors from Germany, France, Argentina, and Austria as they visited communities surrounding Gaza that were attacked by Hamas and the city of Sderot, which has been targeted by rocket attacks since the start of Israel’s war against the Iranian-backed terror group.

“The heinous crimes of Hamas are not directed only against Israelis, but against all humanity,” Mr. Miyares said in a statement released Thursday by the Israeli government. “We will do everything in our power to fight the organization and its people, wherever they are.”

• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.

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