As the six-day truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza continues, Israel has released another group of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 16 hostages freed earlier by Hamas. The prisoners were released earlier on Thursday morning, with a bus carrying some of them arriving in the West Bank city of Ramallah before dawn. This marks the sixth day of the truce, during which hostages have been traded for Palestinian prisoners, leading to the release of a total of 97 hostages in exchange for 210 released prisoners.
Among those freed was Ahed Tamimi, a 22-year-old activist who gained worldwide fame in 2017 after a video of her slapping an Israeli soldier went viral on social media. Israeli troops arrested her at her West Bank home on November 6 for “inciting to terrorism” on her Instagram account, which her mother claimed had been hacked. Hamas released 16 hostages late on Wednesday, including 10 Israeli women and children and four Thai nationals, who were being taken to hospitals to be reunited with their families. Two Russian-Israeli women were also freed by Hamas in a separate release.
Benjamin Netanyahu (Via Benjamin Netanyahu/Twitter)
As international mediators race to seal another extension to the truce, negotiations are growing tougher as most of the women and children held by Hamas are freed, and the militants are expected to seek greater releases in return for freeing men and soldiers. International pressure has mounted for the ceasefire to continue as long as possible after nearly eight weeks of Israeli bombardment and a ground campaign in Gaza that has killed thousands of Palestinians, uprooted three quarters of the population, and led to a humanitarian crisis.
Israel has welcomed the release of dozens of hostages in recent days and has said it will maintain the truce if Hamas keeps freeing captives. However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu underscored that Israel will resume its campaign to eliminate Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years and orchestrated the deadly attack on Israel that triggered the war. Despite the humanitarian concerns, the US, Israel’s main ally, has shown greater reticence over the impact of the war in Gaza, telling Israel that if it launches an offensive in the south, it must operate with far greater precision.
