(AFP) – Israel declared victory on Sunday in its war with Hamas as the militant group prepared to release its surviving hostages, a key step in Donald Trump’s Gaza plan hours before he hosts a peace summit in Egypt. Under the US president’s proposed roadmap, once the Palestinian militants have handed over the hostages, Israel will begin releasing around 2,000 detainees in exchange.
But negotiators were still wrangling late Sunday over the final arrangements, with two Hamas sources telling AFP the group was insisting that Israel include seven senior Palestinian leaders on the list of those to be released. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was nevertheless confident. “This is an emotional evening, an evening of tears, an evening of joy, because tomorrow our children will return to our borders,” Netanyahu said, quoting a biblical verse. “Together we achieved tremendous victories, victories that amazed the whole world… But at the same time I must tell you, the fight is not over,” he said.
Israel’s army chief, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, also claimed victory. “The military pressure we applied over the past two years, together with complementary diplomatic measures, constitute a victory over Hamas,” Zamir said. Shosh Bedrosian, a spokeswoman for Netanyahu’s office, said the hostage release will begin early Monday, with Israel “expecting all 20 of our living hostages to be released together at one time.”
A senior Israeli military official, however, told reporters: “Unfortunately… we anticipate that not all fallen hostages will be returned tomorrow.” Bedrosian earlier said an “international body” would be set up to locate the remains of those not returned as part of Monday’s exchange. Trump is scheduled to arrive in Israel shortly after the expected release and will address the Israeli parliament before heading to Egypt to host a meeting of world leaders to back his plan to end the two-year-old Gaza war and promote Middle East peace.
“Palestinian prisoners will be released once Israel has confirmation that all of our hostages set to be released tomorrow are across the border into Israel,” Bedrosian said. Two Hamas sources, meanwhile, told AFP the group was insisting Israel free seven prominent Palestinian figures as part of the exchange — at least one of whom Israel has previously rejected. The source said that the group and its allies had nevertheless “completed all preparations” for handing over to Israel all the living hostages. Under the plan, Hamas is to release the remaining 47 hostages — living and dead — who were abducted on October 7, 2023, during a cross-border Hamas attack that left 1,219 people dead, most of them civilians, and triggered Israel’s devastating campaign.
Hamas is also expected to hand over remains of a soldier killed in 2014 during a previous Gaza war. Among the Palestinian prisoners to be released, 250 are security detainees, including many convicted of killing Israelis, while about 1,700 were detained by the Israeli army in Gaza during the war. After his Israel visit, Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will chair a summit of leaders from more than 20 countries in the Egyptian Red Sea resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said he will attend, as has Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, his counterparts from Italy and Spain, Giorgia Meloni and Pedro Sanchez, King Abdullah of Jordan, and French President Emmanuel Macron. No Israeli nor Hamas officials will be present, officials from both camps confirmed.
The third day of the ceasefire saw some aid trucks cross into Gaza, but residents in Khan Yunis, in the south of the Strip, said some shipments were being ransacked by starving residents in chaotic scenes that saw food parcels trampled. For Mahmud al-Muzain, a bystander, the scuffle showed that Gazans did not trust that the US-led negotiations would lead to a long-term peace. “Everyone fears the war will return,” he told AFP. “We stockpile food out of fear and worry that the war will come back.”
In Israel, the mother of 25-year-old hostage Matan Zangauker described her intense longing. “My emotions are immense, there are no words to describe them — for me, for us, for all of Israel, which wants the hostages home and waits to see them all return,” said Einav Zangauker.
Going forward, mediators still have the tricky task of securing a longer-term solution. Hamas has over the past two years suffered staggering losses including the killing of its top leaders both in Gaza and in exile. Still, the movement has not been crushed, and a source close to its negotiating committee told AFP on Sunday that while it would not participate in post-war Gaza governance, it will not lay down its weapons. Under the Trump plan, as Israel conducts a partial withdrawal from Gaza, it will be replaced by a multinational force coordinated by a US-led command centre in Israel.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 67,806 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the United Nations considers credible. The data does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but indicates that more than half of the dead are women and children.
– burs-dc/jd/ser/yad/rlp – Dave Clark with AFP team in Gaza and Bahira Amin in Sharm El-Sheikh.
© 2024 AFP
