GAZA/TEL AVIV, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Israel’s government and Hamas agreed on Wednesday to a four-day pause in fighting to allow the release of 50 hostages held in Gaza in exchange for 150 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, and the entry of humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave.
This is such good news. Now the challenge is to keep both sides from reigniting.
I don’t really know what Hamas and Haniyeh and Sinwar want, so it’s hard to speculate what they’ll do, but I know that Netanyahu is trying to reignite the war as hard as he can, and will be desperate to see the ceasefire ended prematurely under circumstances he can blame on Hamas.
For those who haven’t followed his career (and his actions in the least week in particular) this seems abundantly clear. The absolute worst thing that could happen to him would be a deescalation that leads to an political negotiations. I really hope the US antiwar movement is prepared to increase their pressure, because I believe it’s made the difference in getting us this far. As furious as I’ve been at Biden’s response, I have read multiple reports that the US was far more involved in hostage negotiations than Israel, so I will give Biden this sliver of credit if people actually come home. But he really needs to stop propping up Bibi if he wants to land this plane for real.
I don’t really know what Hamas and Haniyeh and Sinwar want
Are you serious? They want the complete destruction of Israel. Have you never read anything Hamas has put out?
I think they might mean “want in an immediate sense”. Even Hamas isn’t deluded enough to think that they’re capable of destroying Israel at this moment.
No, but they knew exactly what the Israeli reaction would be, and that said reaction would end up providing a wave of freshly minted fighters.
Yeah, but I mean, what is their goal now? Like, in the next few months kind of immediate, the kind of immediate that would cause them to accept a truce? Freshly minted fighters don’t mean much if Israel gets away with ethnic cleansing, after all.
Goal now is to get Israel to withdraw and use hostages to extract concessions including the release of kidnapped Palestinians in Israeli jails and humanitarian aid for beleaguered civilians. The military hostages are probably the highest value from a negotiation standpoint and will be kept the longest.
Rebuild all of their terror infrastructure and plan the next murder/rape/kidnapping of Israeli citizens.
I would bet the fights will continue after. Also, Israel has not done ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
Edit: Though I agree that in certain cases (e.g. 1948), they didn’t deal either with the situation well
There’s a handful of people that really don’t want to acknowledge that
And these 150 prisoners are Hamas terrorists that will be exchanged for 50 innocent civilians.
So hamas will have more terrorists on their side to fan the flames for Netinyahu’s next response.
They’re Palestinian women and children, not terrorists. It’s a trade of innocents for innocents
13 women mostly convicted of stabbings.
Edit: 33 women are on the list of 300 total, I counted the Hebrew source material myself. 15+ is of those with stabbing charges and convictions or general attempted murder.
Overwhelming majority of minors did fucked up shit.
https://www.gov.il/he/Departments/DynamicCollectors/is-db?skip=0
Removed by mod
OK, terrorist. Attempting murder is bad.
They picked this set because Hamas asked for this set. The actual convicted murders weren’t allowed to be released.
There’s no hostages in Israel, there’s people being processed by the courts. If you think the wait times are bad go check out Japan and claim they have hostages, or the US prison system with constitutional slave labor and barely any public defenders with the largest per capita prison pop in the world.
There’s something like 50 women total held.
All of these people get charged there’s a reason almost no one on the list is there for more than 2 years without being tried in civil court. The military tribunal cases convert over when they get processed. They were charged and their charges are listed in the database.
They are terrorists.
Israel didn’t kidnap them for no reason. Unlike what Hamas does.
Go vote for Trump and believe in fake news.
The over a thousand people held without charges would disagree with you. Are trusted human rights organizations fake news now?
I read the 2017 charter where Hamas says they will accept a 2 state solution
Do you mean this part:
- Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.
Or perhaps this part:
- Resisting the occupation with all means and methods is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and by international norms and laws. At the heart of these lies armed resistance, which is regarded as the strategic choice for protecting the principles and the rights of the Palestinian people.
Oh wait, there’s more:
- A real state of Palestine is a state that has been liberated. There is no alternative to a fully sovereign Palestinian State on the entire national Palestinian soil, with Jerusalem as its capital.
They define “Palestinian soil” earlier:
- Palestine, which extends from the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west and from Ras Al-Naqurah in the north to Umm Al-Rashrash in the south, is an integral territorial unit. It is the land and the home of the Palestinian people. The expulsion and banishment of the Palestinian people from their land and the establishment of the Zionist entity therein do not annul the right of the Palestinian people to their entire land and do not entrench any rights therein for the usurping Zionist entity.
They have only 1 segment that even hints that they might accept a 2 state solution:
However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.
Which is pretty hard to take at face as an acceptance of a two state solution when it literally says in the sentence before that that they reject any alternative other than “from the river to the sea” and in the sentence after completely reject the Oslo accords.
Thank you my dude. These peeps are getting brainwashed by theocratic thugs. It’s unreal how lefties are falling for this.
Can you share a link? I’ve been looking for source documents like this.
Their 2017 Charter in English, translated and published by Hamas.
Their 1988 Charter is far more violent and basically lays out plans for an Islamic State in the region.
Thanks muchly
Yes Israel paints them as Nazi Isis but it’s more accurate to view them as the Viet Cong. They are fighting an anti colonial war.
This is so dumb and reductive, though.
First, that goal is like trying to drink the ocean. It’s obviously impossible, so it’s not useful as an indicator for what they’ll agree to.
Second, we hear this over and over, but the only citation is their founding document over thirty years ago. And in 2006 they went through a moderate rebrand, and then a lot of people in the org died, and Sinwar spent two decades in Israeli prison, so… that doesn’t really tell us where they’re at in this moment.
Folks act like they’re orcs. Just mindlessly evil. They’re definitely completely ruthless, but the stuff they do isn’t that different from what the IRA did, and they still made peace. So what does Sinwar want? Has anyone thought to ask?
Try this reporting for motives of Sinwar. It’s a good listen.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/14/podcasts/the-daily/hamas-israel.htmlThanks. I’m excited to hear it.
Netanyahu: “We have creditable evidence that Hamas is experimenting with atomic weaponry. If nothing is done within 300 years, Hamas will have nukes!”
This is such good news. Now the challenge is to keep both sides from reigniting.
There was a ceasefire already in place prior to the 7th of October attacks
There was a blockade of Gaza since 2007.
Not necessarily. There were needed controls from Israeli side to ensure as little weapons get there as possible. That’s not blockade. That’s an attempt to prevent a terrorist organization to gain way too much power.
Israel was blockading fucking food ports into Palestine. I’m sick of people trying to justify this extremist bullshit by painting every Palestinian as a terrorist. Yes it was a damn blockade. Stop fucking lying about it.
And the only reason Israel started the blockade was Hamas getting elected, which Israel helped them to do in the first place.
Not every palestinian is terrorist, I agree. So now let’s divide people into 2 categories: West bank inhabitants and Gaza inhabitants.
Hamas in Gaza made the population so radical that both egypt and israel decided to close the borders. They (at least Egypt) would not do it if the population was not so radical.
In the West Bank, people are less radical but still it’s not ideal.
You know, instead of relitigating the crimes of both sides until we die, what if we just organize a new peace process already?
It’s been a fucking generation since anyone actually tried. And people always say, “Oh, ___ wont’ agree to that!” Well, okay, prove it. Book the big room at Olive Garden and see if someone shows up.
Obviously, it would be absolutely awesome to have a peace but firstly we need all the sides to agree on that. With Hamas present, neither Israelis/Palestinians will accept a deal.
Both sides make that claim, and neither is going to sit down as long as they have a choice not to.
Apartheid ended because the rest of the world left the people enforcing it with no means of retaining power. The same must be applied to Israel-Palestine.
A ceasefire that doesn’t involve lifting the blockade is meaningless because the blockade is already an act of war.
They also assassinated their journalist Shireen Abu Akleh last year so idk what type of ceasefire it is when only one side gets to murder the others (but they didn’t drop any bombs so it’s ok).
And Hamas fired thousands of rockets at Israel during the ceasefire since 2007, is that also not an act of war?
That’s after the blockade, which is again an act of war.
The blockade was in response to the election of a known terrorist organization that was amassing weapons.
But hey, if you think it’s okay to try and murder Israeli civilians on the daily, why are you so mad at Israel killing Palestinian civilians? Seems pretty hypocritical of you.
The blockade started 3 months before Hamas was elected so… yeah. Israel declared war on Gaza before Hamas was even elected.
You mean the election that the Israeli government helped Hamas win, then used as an excuse to punish Palestinians? You fucking pro-Israelis are the biggest liars on the planet.
A blockade is an act of war as defined by international law.
What’s your point? I don’t see how this relates to either my statement that it is good news that hostages are being released or my statement that it will be a challenge to keep both sides from reigniting.
Reuters – Bias and Credibility
Bias Rating: Least Biased
Factual Reporting: Very High
Country: United Kingdom
MBFC’s Country Freedom Rank: Mostly Free
Media Type: News Agency
Traffic/Popularity: High Traffic
MBFC Credibility Rating: High Credibility
Their hostages vs our prisoners (that we hold without trial or accusation)
No bias detected.
Edit: Confirmed that hostage is the terminology used by Hamas to describe their Israeli captives.
“Ezzedeen Al Qassam Brigades Military Wing of Hamas MovementMilitary Information Department”
“Therefore, we declare that any targeting of our defenceless civilians’ homes without prior warnings will be met with the execution of an Israeli civilian hostage in our custody, and this event will be broadcast publicly“
Original comment: Maybe I’m just confused, but doesn’t Hamas themselves use the same terminology?
Hard to say with translations, a lot is up to the translator.
*In response to your edit, I thought you were referring to what does Hamas call their people being held by Israel. What Hamas calls their hostages seems less relevant to me.
The English language version is self published and not translated. Hamas also has a number of members who are fluent English speakers.
Good to know. My main point was that I’m not going to put too much weight in word choice for people for whom English is not a first language.
I’m not saying Hamas is not holding hostages, I’m saying a lot of Israeli prisoners are hostages.
https://www.gov.il/he/Departments/DynamicCollectors/is-db?skip=0 plenty tried and accused.
Which ones are the 150 women children to be released from Israeli jail?
Which ones are the 150 women and children to be released from Israeli jail?
It’s the set Hamas proposed, 33 are women, the rest are mostly now 16-18 year old dudes.
Terrorists have hostages. Countries have political prisoners and prisoners of war.
Hamas has no hostages but POWs then? 🤨
Nope, hostages
The concept of evaluating media for bias and conflating that with factuality is, frankly, terrifying. A site’s political views is not necessarily representative of its factuality, but Media Bias Fact Check consistently penalizes sites that have “never failed a fact check” because they are not considered to be “least biased.”
These sites bite off more than they can chew. They’re extremely US-Western-centric (mostly because the authors of these sites tend to be American and thus have their own set of American biases) - claiming that America is somehow the paragon of journalistic freedoms and free speech is, in itself, an American bias. CBC, which hasn’t failed a fact check, is only a “high” on the factual reporting scale, for example. Meanwhile Reuters, for which I can point to multiple instances where they got key details wrong, gets a “very high” for factual reporting.
Dang, finally, 50 is still small amount but hopefully this lead to more. More importantly is the flow of humanitarian aid
Israeli media said the first release of hostages was expected on Thursday. Implementing the deal must wait for 24 hours to give Israeli citizens the chance to ask the Supreme Court to block the release of Palestinian prisoners, reports said.
Wouldn’t that break the truce??
Presumably there are “alternates” if there are objections to a specific person being released. One of the conditions is that no one who was convicted of murder will be released, so it may include someone who only gravely injured someone, rather than actually killed someone.
If you can find the list you can search each name. There well likely be some news articles about each one.
EDIT:
The full list (in Hebrew) is here: https://www.gov.il/he/Departments/DynamicCollectors/is-db
Israeli press is already raising some objections to those who were being held for attempted murder - including one woman who repeatedly stabbed a mother in front of her kids.
Oh wow, big news! Yay peace!
There will be no peace.
Once Israel recovers the hostages or confirms their death, Gaza becomes a parking lot.
Israel could have made Gaza a parking lot well before any hostages were taken if that’s what they wanted to do.
It seems that’s the plan right now. They’re making it a parking lot as fast as the international community (well mostly the US) will tolerate.
So extremely slowly? Gaza’s population has doubled in the last 17 years since Israel’s withdrawal.
If they wanted a parking lot they could have had it.
Nobody said Israel wants to kill all Gazans. However, by their own admission, they want to forcibly relocate them (which is ethnic cleansing and depending on who you ask genocide) for Lebensraum.
Just as the Gazans want to forcibly relocate the Israelis, most of whom were born there, and a large percentage have families that have been there for hundreds of years.
Both sides want to ethnically cleanse the other, yet idiots on this site seem to love to support Palestine only, and ignore their own attempts at genocide.
And Israel is going to release all of the Palestinian hostage they’re holding? Or just 200?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Ahead of the announcement of the deal, Netanyahu said the intervention of U.S. President Joe Biden had helped to improve the tentative agreement so that it included more hostages and fewer concessions.
In addition to Israeli citizens, more than half the hostages held foreign and dual citizenship from some 40 countries including the U.S., Thailand, Britain, France, Argentina, Germany, Chile, Spain and Portugal, Israel’s government has said.
Implementing the deal must wait for 24 hours to give Israeli citizens the chance to ask the Supreme Court to block the release of Palestinian prisoners, reports said.
Qatar’s chief negotiator in ceasefire talks, Minister of State at the Foreign Ministry Mohammed Al-Khulaifi, told Reuters that the International Committee of the Red Cross would be working inside Gaza to facilitate the hostages’ release.
The armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, which participated in the Oct. 7 raid with Hamas, said late on Tuesday that one of the Israeli hostages it has held since the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel had died.
“We previously expressed our willingness to release her for humanitarian reasons, but the enemy was stalling and this led to her death,” Al Quds Brigades said on its Telegram channel.
The original article contains 980 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 79%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I think this bot is broken. This isn’t the article linked.
Edit: On second look this is the article, just a terrible summary missing pretty much everything important.
It is, just badly bastardised.
Worked for me. Try again maybe?
Edit: On second look, this is the article, just a very poor “summary” for whatever reason.
Original response:
Sorry, I’m confused. Here’s the first 5 paragraphs in the linked article. I’m not seeing any of it summarized by the bot.
Israel’s government and Hamas agreed on Wednesday to a four-day pause in fighting to allow the release of 50 hostages held in Gaza in exchange for 150 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, and the entry of humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave.
Officials from Qatar, which has been mediating secret negotiations, as well as the U.S., Israel and Hamas have for days been saying a deal was imminent.
Hamas is believed to be holding more than 200 hostages, taken when its fighters surged into Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.
A statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said 50 women and children will be released over four days, during which there will be a pause in fighting.
For every additional 10 hostages released, the pause would be extended by another day, it said, without mentioning the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange.
