Sponsor of Hamas and home to the largest US military base in the region, the scheming absolutist monarchy of Qatar leaked yesterday an offer to release 12 to 15 hostages, six of whom would be Americans, in exchange for 'a ceasefire of between one and three days in Gaza.
Qatari sources indicate that the US endorses the operation and is in the case of the details. "Hamas only has one card in this war: the hostages", an Arab-Israeli source with experience in this kind of negotiations pointed out to us a few days ago.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, echoed the affair, without mentioning it, in a meeting with West Bank settlers. "I would like to discard all kinds of vain rumors that reach us from everywhere and repeat one thing clearly: there will be no ceasefire without the release of our hostages. Everything else is futile", he pointed out. The question is whether a handful of hostages – not two or three – could enter this framework of firmness.
Qatar was the architect of the only four hostage releases so far, in October, four women in two rounds, and has been negotiating new cases, given its close relationship with the leadership of Hamas , who lives in Doha, and his sustained day-to-day financial support of the strip since Hamas gained absolute control of it in 2007 (80% of civil servants' payrolls were routinely paid to Qatar).
According to Israel, the kidnapped amount to 240, of which 32 are children, some as young as months.
A negotiating source close to Hamas, quoted by Agence France-Presse, points out that the main sticking point is the length of the humanitarian truce and the territory it would include (Hamas wants it to include the northern half, where Israeli troops are full offensive and have sacked Gaza City).
Until now, the Government of Israel maintains that there will only be a ceasefire with the release of "our hostages", an argument that allows us to say no to everything and return the humanitarian ball to those who send it to the Prime Minister. Again and again, Israeli spokesmen respond to media questions and adverse foreign statements that "their" hostages have no assistance or visits from the International Red Cross.
Hostages are very present in Israel's day-to-day life, thanks to a spectacular and modern mobilization of their relatives and the private groups that defend their cause. This of civil society in Israel has all the meaning and prominence.
Prime Minister Netanyahu's theory regarding the relatives is that the more powerful the military offensive, the more likely they will be released, another paradox in a region that is full of them, as the Qatari paper itself evokes – partner at the same time of the United States and of Hamas.
For Hamas, the 240 abductees of more than twenty nationalities – there are even Russians, a friendly country of the organization – are the only apparent asset and the only currency to whitewash before the world the atrocities of 7 October The successive calls by Hamas to its allies in Hizbullah – the pro-Iranian militia that dominates southern Lebanon – to revive a second military front are not seconded with the force they expected. And militarily, Israeli superiority guarantees, sooner or later, the beheading of Hamas in Gaza. No Arab government or Iran has argued that they can have any role in Gaza after the war. They already seem amortized...
Diplomatic sources in Tel-Aviv indicate that a ceasefire in this context requires very meticulous negotiations to prevent a breach from throwing more gasoline on the fire and resuming the war with more ferocity. Egypt indicated yesterday that it is ready to increase humanitarian aid when it is authorized. A spokesman for the United Nations points out that the water coming from Egypt covers the needs of 4% of the population of Gaza. Among the holders of dual nationalities, after Israeli verification, a hundred Romanians left for Rafah yesterday.
The Israeli army says that the military offensive is progressing in Gaza City and on its balance sheet there is the destruction of 130 tunnels thanks to the engineering teams and the elimination of another second-ranking leader of Hamas, Abu Zina , while their casualties amount to 33 dead soldiers. The macabre score of dead Palestinians in Gaza rises to 10,569 dead, according to Hamas. Isn't this the Six Day War...
