Global leaders call on Hamas to free dual-national and Israeli hostages
The leaders of 18 countries including the UK and the US have called on Hamas to free Israeli and dualnational hostages held in Gaza.
“The fate of the hostages and the civilian population in Gaza, who are protected under international law, is of international concern,” they said in a statement. “We strongly support the ongoing mediation efforts in order to bring our people home.”
Hamas and other militant groups took 250 people hostage on 7 October when they overran towns and kibbutzim next to Gaza, killing an estimated 1,136 people. After intensive negotiations mediated by Qatar and Egypt, 105 were released as part of a hostage deal last November in exchange for a pause in fighting.
The call to free the hostages followed intensifying Israeli airstrikes on Rafah, as well as Khan Younis. Palestinian medics reported that the strikes in Rafah killed six including a journalist, amid fears of an impending Israeli ground assault.
Israeli officials including the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, have claimed that military force, including a planned invasion of Rafah, will allow Israel to defeat Hamas militants and bring hostages home.
A senior member of Hamas’s politburo, Khalil al-Hayya, told the Associated Press yesterday that the group was willing to agree to a five-year ceasefire with Israel and dissolve its military wing with the establishment of an independent Palestinian state along borders established before 1967.
It is not clear if the proposal is supported by Hamas’s military wing, who have long called the shots in Gaza. It is unlikely Israel would consider such a scenario and has vowed to crush Hamas after the 7 October attacks. The country’s leadership is also adamantly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state on lands Israel captured in the 1967 war.
Over the years, Hamas has sometimes moderated its public position with respect to the possibility of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But its political programme still officially “rejects any alternative to the full liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea” – referring to the area reaching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, which includes lands that now make up Israel.
The families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza have put renewed pressure on Netanyahu to restart negotiations for a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of their loved ones.
Following the release by Hamas on Wednesday of a hostage video of the Israeli-American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, there were clashes outside Netanyahus’s Jerusalem home, where demonstrators lit fires, set off fireworks and swarmed the car of the far-right security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Speaking under duress in the proof-of-life video posted on Hamas’s Telegram account, Goldberg-Polin accused Israel’s government of abandoning the people being held hostage by Hamas and claimed that 70 captives had been killed in Israel’s bombing campaign.
R Adm Daniel Hagari, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), described the video as “an urgent call for action”, adding that “until Hamas releases our hostages the IDF will continue to pursue Hamas everywhere in Gaza”.
Israel’s war cabinet convened yesterday to discuss plans to restart talks as well as the potential ground invasion of Rafah. A government spokesperson declined to say when or whether the classified forum might give a green light for a ground operation in Rafah. An estimated 1 million people are seeking shelter in the city after Israeli bombardments levelled other urban centres in Gaza.
Recent talks to facilitate a second pause in fighting in exchange for the release of 40 hostages all but collapsed over Hamas’s demands for the permanent withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza as well as the return of Palestinians to the north of the territory.