Hundreds of Israeli women took to the streets demanding an agreement with Hamas. Hamas rejects ceasefire proposal to free hostages

This Wednesday, hundreds of women took to the streets of Israel and demanded that the government negotiate a deal to free the hostages. The hijacking was carried out by the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas in an attack on Israeli soil on 7 October.

“Time is running out,” warned one of the demonstrators who blocked roads and intersections in Jerusalem as part of the protest. Galit Raz DrorOne of those responsible for the call explained that the initiative expresses the anger of women throughout the country and aims to demand an immediate agreement with Hamas. “If we have to stop the world so they come back, we’ll stop the world,” he said. Dror, who noted that a protest is also planned in New York.

Israeli officials estimate that of the approximately 240 people taken hostage in October, 132 left in Gaza Strip, although it is not ruled out that some of them are no longer alive. Last November, in the context of a brief ceasefire between the two sides, 110 of these hostages were released in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners. According to intelligence sources, the Israeli military indicated in a statement that at least 28 hostages had died.

Israeli pressure and Hamas’s rejection

Meanwhile, a protest was held which was not without controversy. Dozens of Israelis demonstrated at the Kerem Shalom crossing, between Israel and the Strip, against the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave., “This is crazy. While the people of Israel hope for victory, the government feeds, clothes and fuels the enemy, even as it shoots our soldiers and civilians with rockets and tortures our starving hostages. “Tries to do,” said Reut Ben Haim, a mother of eight from the city of Netivot, in statements reported by the Israeli press.

On 20 October, Israel agreed for the first time to allow humanitarian aid to enter the Strip from Egypt through the Rafah border crossing, but in December it agreed to enable the Kerem Shalom crossing to facilitate logistics. Its opening does not mean that aid entering Gaza comes from Israel, but rather it is donations and shipments from the international community and humanitarian agencies in all cases.

President of Egypt, abel fattah el sisiSaid in a speech on the occasion of Police Day that the obstruction to the entry of humanitarian aid is a kind of pressure that the Israeli side is applying to free the hostages. Other than this, He stressed that the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing is “open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 30 days a month,” and stressed that delays in aid access are Israel’s responsibility.

, “We have not been able to send basic products for four months. The amount of trucks we sent to Gaza before the war was 600 trucks per day, while two or three days ago the largest number we were able to send was 200 or 220. It was a truck. Sissi expressed her condolences.

last day, An anonymous Egyptian official told the agency AP That Hamas rejected Israel’s offer of a two-month ceasefire in exchange for the release of all hostages, According to the source, the Palestinian Islamic group insisted that it would not release any hostages until Israeli troops permanently halt their offensive. The deal offered by Israel included the release of Palestinian prisoners as well as the opportunity for Hamas leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, to leave Gaza for other countries.

“War for the Motherland”

Far from wanting a permanent ceasefire, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated on Wednesday that defense forces will remain in the Gaza Strip until they achieve a “complete and total” victory over Hamas., at a symbolic event for the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. At the same time, he warned that Israel was waging a “war for the homeland”, and called on other powers to support the decisions adopted by the war cabinet.

For your part, Israel’s opposition leaders and members of the emergency government, benny gantzpointed out that the objective of recovering the hostages is not incompatible with eliminating the Islamic group. He said, “The return of hostages is not only an objective of the war programme, but also a moral duty of the State. This objective is urgent and does not conflict with the commitment to eliminate the irremediable threat of Hamas.”

Gantz said in a televised speech.

The leader of the Blue and White party promised that the emergency government would know how to take the difficult decisions needed to be able to return kidnapped people. “I promise the relatives of the hostages and everyone that just as we were able to take difficult decisions in the past, we will know how to take it in the future if there is a real proposal,” stressed Gantz, who criticized the rumors. Let’s do this, this matter becomes the work of the government and causes pain to the families.