JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed during the ongoing Cabinet meeting on the deal to free 50 of the hostages held by the Hamas terrorist organization that the terms of the deal allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit the hostages who are not currently being released and to provide them with medical assistance.
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This would be the first time ever that the Red Cross has visited Israeli hostages held by the Hamas terrorist organization. The organization never visited IDF soldier Gilad Shalit during the five years he was held captive by Hamas, nor has it visited Israeli civilians Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who have been held by Hamas in Gaza since 2014 and 2015, respectively.
The Red Cross has been criticized within Israel for its failure to pressure Hamas to abide by international law and to allow the organization to visit its captives. Instead, the Red Cross has largely condemned Israel for its responses to Hamas’ attacks.
Under the terms of the deal currently under discussion, Hamas would free 50 hostages, all women and children, in exchange for the freeing of 150 terrorists – also women and children- from Israeli prisons and a pause of four days of Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu promised the Cabinet ministers that the operation to eliminate Hamas in Gaza will continue after the ceasefire expires.
Hamas kidnapped about 240 people from southern Israel during the October 7 massacre in which over 1,200 people were murdered. The youngest hostage was just nine months old when he was kidnapped and is now ten months old. A pregnant woman (from Thailand) who was kidnapped gave birth in Hamas captivity. The terrorist organization has executed several hostages already.
The Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit parties have announced that they will vote against the hostage deal, while the charedi Shas and United Torah Judaism parties were instructed by their rabbinical leadership to support the deal. Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef also expressed his support for the deal, based on the halachic rulings of his father.
It is likely that the deal will receive enough support within the Cabinet to be passed even without the religious Zionist parties. In the meantime the deal has been authorized by Israel’s war cabinet and the cabinet will vote on it at the end of the discussion taking place Tuesday night.
The media must give privacy to the released hostages and their families, once they arrive home, as they have been through enough.
While it was inevitable, this article confirms it – some hostages have already been killed :’-(
BDE
השם ינקום דמם
Trading for hostages is a victory for the Bad Guys.
Please Hashem let the hostages return safe, whole and with a renewed feeling of connection to the aibishter.We must continue to say Tehillim (16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137 and 150) and engage in no lashon horah and daven with kavono!
this is step one
step 2 3 days into cease fire hamas will offer a 10 day cease fire for 9 released hostages
step 3 international pressure will not allow the Israeli ofensive to resume
step 4 israel withdraws from Gaza after febuaryt
step 5 the remaining hstages are freed in exchange for the nakba murderers
step 6 exedose from the western negev
Interesting news is stating to trickle out.
1. Presidents Biden was the essential person to put pressure on Qatar, he told them the negotiations is gonna to be over “Today”, if Hamas don’t produce a list specifically the names, aged, and gender of the first 50 hostages to be released first
2. President Biden in every phone conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu, to him, that Israel must open an aid route.
I don’t know how to look at it. Time will tell.
What many people fail to understand is that wars are won or lost, not so much on the battlefield, but in the courts of public opinion.
Israel was stuck between a rock and a hard place. They could not afford to be the ones that turned down a plan, any plan, that involved the release of a substantial amount of hostages. They would look like they’re just bloodthirsty.
I’m sure they realize that this “pause” will set them back a little militarily, but on the plus side, they will IYH have 50 hostages freed. That’s 9 more than until now.
Little do the freed 150 terrorists know about the trackers embedded in their bodies making them dead people walking, from live in prison to dead within days.
Israel is hold women and children as prisoners? I get women, but children????