Hamas published, on Friday, February 7, a list of three Israeli hostages on Friday, February 7 to be released on Saturday against Palestinian prisoners, raising the doubts that hoven on this new exchange after Donald Trump’s proposal for American takeover of Gaza.
Israel and the Family Forum confirmed that these were three men, kidnapped during the attack on Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023: or Levy, 33 years old at the time of his capture, Eli Sharabi, 51 years, and Israeli-German ohad ben Ami, 55 years old. According to the Palestinian prisoner club, they must be released against 183 Palestinian prisoners, the fifth exchange of this type since the entry into force of the cease-fire agreement in the Gaza Strip, January 19, after 15 months of war.
The Ezzedine Al-Qassam brigades, the armed branch of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, “decided to release Zionist prisoners tomorrow on Saturday,” their spokesperson said on Telegram. A little earlier, a spokesperson for Hamas had accused Israel of delaying the entry into Gaza of clearing gear, affirming that this affected the extraction of the body of the hostages “dead, bombed by Israel”.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu said that the latter would follow the process from the United States, where he is visiting.
The truce agreement has already enabled four sets of releases, 18 hostages and around 600 Palestinian prisoners. The first phase of the agreement, six weeks, must lead to the release in total 33 hostages, including at least eight deceased, against 1,900 Palestinians. Of the 251 people kidnapped during the attack on October 7 which sparked the war, 76 are still retained in Gaza, including at least 34 dead according to the army.
Donald Trump says that his project for Gaza is “not in a hurry”
The indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel on the second phase of their agreement began on Tuesday in Qatar, one of the three mediating countries with the United States and Egypt, according to a spokesperson for the Palestinian movement. But the cards were considerably rebatted when Donald Trump amazed the planet by offering an American takeover of the Gaza Strip and a displacement of its population, especially in Egypt or Jordan, to be able to reconstruct it.
After insisting on this project on Thursday, the American president said on Friday that he was “absolutely not in a hurry”. Amman and Cairo rejected his idea, which aroused international outcry, the UN warning against any “ethnic cleaning”. She has been virtually condemned by Hamas and the Palestinian authority in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
Even very vague, the Trump plan is nevertheless the perspective, ultimately, from a solution to two states to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, several decades. This regulation is defended by a large part of the international community, including the United States so far, but Israel is firmly opposed.