It is very possible. Hamas doesn't value human life and it is a war zone. I am very surprised any of them are alive, and I am surprised they are giving up hostages because that is a key leverage point they have.
They have the agreement in place, but until the details are ironed out and the exchange is completed... This sounds like Phase 1 of multiple phases for exchanging hostages for prisoners and pauses. It makes all the sense in the world that Hamas would execute Phase 1 to gain some trust for future phases. What exactly do they want out of this? One of the original guesses was that they want Israel to release their prisoners, so perhaps that's exactly what they are doing now. Here's how it happened below. Huge thanks again to Qatar. And credit to the Biden administration for pushing this through to this level... https://www.reuters.com/world/middl...tions-that-led-gaza-hostages-deal-2023-11-22/ Shortly after Hamas militants took hostages during their deadly assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, the government of Qatar contacted the White House with a request: Form a small team of advisers to help work to get the captives freed. That work, begun in the days after the hostages were taken, finally bore fruit with the announcement of a prisoner swap deal mediated by Qatar and Egypt and agreed by Israel, Hamas and the United States. The secretive effort included tense personal diplomatic engagement by U.S. President Joe Biden, who held a number of urgent conversations with emir of Qatar and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the weeks leading up to the deal. It also involved hours of painstaking negotiations including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, CIA Director Bill Burns, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his deputy Jon Finer, and U.S. Middle East envoy Brett McGurk, among others. Two officials involved in the effort provided extensive details of the work that led to an agreement in which 50 hostages are to be freed in exchange for 150 Palestinian prisoners during a four-day pause in fighting. Shortly after Oct. 7, Qatar - a long-established mediator in a volatile region - approached the White House with sensitive information regarding the hostages and the potential for their release, the officials said. The Qataris asked that a small team, which they called a "cell," be established to work the issue privately with the Israelis. Sullivan directed McGurk and another National Security Council official, Josh Geltzer, to establish the team. This was done without telling other relevant U.S. agencies because Qatar and Israel demanded extreme secrecy with only a few people to be in the know, the officials said. McGurk, a seasoned diplomat with deep experience in the Middle East, held daily morning calls with the prime minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani. He reported back to Sullivan and Biden was briefed daily on the process. ... The return of the two Americans proved it was possible to gain freedom for hostages and gave confidence to Biden that Qatar could deliver through the small team that had been established, the officials said. Now, an intensified process started to get more hostages out. When this happened, Burns began speaking regularly with Mossad director David Barnea. Biden saw an opportunity to gain the release of a large number of hostages and that a deal for prisoners was the only realistic path to securing a pause in the fighting, the officials said. On Oct. 24, with Israel poised to launch a ground offensive in Gaza, the U.S. side got word that Hamas had agreed to the parameters of a deal to release women and children, which would mean a pause and a delay in the ground invasion. U.S. officials debated with the Israelis whether or not the ground offensive should be delayed. The Israelis argued that terms were not firm enough to delay, since there was no proof of life for the hostages. Hamas claimed they could not determine who was being held until a pause in fighting began. Americans and Israelis viewed the Hamas position as disingenuous. The official said Israel's invasion plan was adapted to support a pause if a deal came together. Biden then engaged over the next three weeks in detailed talks as proposals about a potential hostage release were traded back and forth. Demands were made that Hamas produce the lists of hostages it was holding, their identifying information, and guarantees of release. The process was long and cumbersome - communication was difficult and messages had to be passed from Doha or Cairo into Gaza and back, the officials said. Biden held a previously undisclosed phone call with the Qatari prime minister when the phasing of releases began to take shape, the official said. Under the agreement that was taking shape, women and children hostages would be freed in a first phase, together with a commensurate release of Palestinian prisoners from the Israelis. The Israelis insisted Hamas ensure all women and children come out in this phase. The U.S. side agreed, and demanded through Qatar proof of life or identifying information for women and children held by Hamas. Hamas said it could guarantee 50 in the first phase, but refused to produce a list of identifying criteria. On November 9, Burns met in Doha with the Qatari leader and the Mossad's Barnea to go through the texts of the emerging arrangement. The key obstacle at that point was that Hamas had not clearly identified who it was holding. Three days later, Biden called the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and demanded to know the names or clear identifying information for the 50 hostages including ages, gender and nationalities. Without the information, the official said, there was no basis to move forward. Shortly after Biden's call, Hamas produced details for the 50 hostages it said would be released in the first phase of any deal. Biden in a Nov. 14 call urged Netanyahu to take the deal - Netanyahu agreed. ... The agreement was now structured for women and children to be freed in the first phase, but with an expectation for future releases and the aim to bring all hostages home to their families.
A very impressive diplomatic effort by the Biden team and Qatar. I really had no expectations as it seemed like the IDF was determined to press their assault and Hamas was determined to not yield. Hopefully the rest can be freed but I’m not expecting much.
The truce extension, conditioned on hostages' release, could bring an extended truce. It is on Hamas to make that choice. 200/10 = 20 days. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-hamas-start-first-truce-gaza-war-2023-11-24/ Hamas fighters released 24 hostages on Friday during the first day of the war's first truce, including Israeli women and children and Thai farm workers, after guns fell silent across the Gaza Strip for the first time in seven weeks. The hostages were transferred out of Gaza and handed over to Egyptian authorities at the Rafah border crossing, accompanied by eight staff members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in a four-car convoy, the ICRC said. Thirty-nine Palestinian women and children were released from Israeli jails in return for the 13 Israelis, Qatar said. Under the terms of the four-day Israel-Hamas truce, 50 women and children hostages are to be released over four days, in return for 150 Palestinian women and children among thousands of detainees in Israeli jails. Israel says the truce could be extended if more hostages are released at a rate of 10 per day.
Hamas started firing rockets (again; really, they never stopped) 15 minutes after the ceasefire began. Of course, if Israel responds, they will be blamed.
I think it’s great for those hostages to be released and can’t imagine the relief the families must feel. I really hope the rest can be but we’ll see
AP: Israel and Hamas agree to extend truce for two more days, and to free more hostages and prisoners Israel has said it would extend the cease-fire by one day for every 10 additional hostages released. After the announcement by Qatar — a key mediator in the conflict, along with the United States and Egypt — Hamas confirmed it had agreed to a two-day extension “under the same terms.”
Qatar has been funding Hamas, basically sponsoring terror. It would be like my hiring a hitman against you and then when I tell the hitman to pause firing after shooting you in the legs and killing some of your family members, I call myself a "mediator" for that. I mean...srsly.
I would not classify aids (to the Gaza region controlled by Hamas) that is approved by Israel, the UN and the US as "basically sponsoring terror". If we make that classification, it implies that Israel, the UN, and the US also basically approve of sponsoring terror. Who funds Hamas? A global network of crypto, cash and charities | Reuters Gas-rich Qatar too has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to Gaza since 2014, at one point spending $30 million per month to help operate the enclave's sole power plant and to support needy families and public servants in the Hamas-run government. "Qatari aid provides 100 dollars to the poorest Palestinian families and extends the period of electricity during a day in Gaza," a Qatari official said in response to a request for government comment, adding that it had helped "maintain stability and quality of life for ... Palestinian families". Qatar walks a foreign policy tightrope, hosting the region's largest U.S. military base, the Taliban and other groups, often allowing it to mediate. CASH RULES Qatar's funding for Gaza actually passes through Israel, a source familiar with the process said. The funds are transferred electronically from Qatar to Israel. Israeli and U.N. officials hand-carry cash over the border to Gaza. The cash is distributed directly to needy families and public servants in Gaza and each family or individual must sign next to their name that they've received the cash. One copy of that sheet goes to Israel, one goes to the UN and one goes to Qatar. "Qatari aid to the Gaza Strip is fully coordinated with Israel, the UN and the U.S.," the Qatari government official said. https://www.france24.com/en/middle-...key-and-beyond-the-galaxy-of-hamas-supporters Qatar's financial and political ties to Hamas Some analysts claim that Doha is a financial backer for Hamas. “Their financial support of $30 million per month is proven and public,” said Didier Billion, deputy director of the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs (IRIS). “These payments are justified to pay civil servants in Gaza, and we know perfectly well that the latter are members of Hamas. Doha’s money is therefore the equivalent of direct support for this organisation which has held the Palestinian enclave with an iron fist for many years.” The financial support began five years ago to avoid “a major humanitarian crisis in Gaza”, as the French newspaper Libération reported in 2018. The first payment of $15 million arrived in three large suitcases brought into Gaza through the Israeli border crossing at Erez, in the north of the enclave. Qatar’s envoy to Gaza, Mohammed al-Emadi, also known as the unofficial intermediary between the Gaza Strip, Doha and Israel, delivered the cash. These cash transfers took place with the approval of the Israelis and the international community, reported The Times of Israel on October 8. According to the news site, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank – bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group”. Furthermore, “most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset”.
Sorry, I thought it was common knowledge what Qatar is doing. And in contrast to probably most of you, I have been there many times and have actually done a bit of business there. As I said, I am a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to Qatar. But they are definitely consciously sponsoring terrorism.
I think suspicion of Qatar the Emirates and Saudi Arabia is warranted. Whether their governments directly support terrorists there is a lot of evidence that prominent individuals and families there do. Given the complexity of the situation to save the hostages means having to deal with them.
Hamas is the official governing body of the Gaza Strip and some 2 million people who live there. They are primarily responsible for administering civili services to the population. They also have a military wing that wages war against Israel by relying on terrorism (violence against non-military targets). A lot of countries are “sponsors of terrorism” if we use the standard that financial aid, ostensibly for civil/humanitarian purposes, is equivalent to sponsoring whatever horrible things that government does. It is a moral quandary. But as has been pointed out, money directed to Hamas/Gaza was carried out with Israel’s knowledge and support. The absolute economic and civil collapse of Gaza was not considered by Israel to be in their interests of maintaining a kind of status quo “peace”.
