Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal brings hope, but Gaza bombing continues as hostage families hold their breath
this Israel and Hamas reach agreement A ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages brought immediate cheers to thousands across the devastated Palestinian territory, but hope remained limited by anxiety on Thursday morning, both locally and on the streets of Israel. Rising bloodshed in Gaza and doubts expressed by Israeli leaders about the reliability of the deal announced the night before added to the unease.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that a “last-minute crisis” with Hamas was delaying Israel’s final approval of a long-sought truce. Israeli media reported that the delay may be due to Netanyahu trying to buy time to deal with nationalist hard-liners in his cabinet who have been vehemently opposed to any deal with Hamas.
“We fully expect that this agreement will proceed as outlined yesterday and in accordance with the timetable we established, so that implementation will begin as early as Sunday with a ceasefire and the release of the first hostages,” said Deputy National Security Adviser Jonathan Feiner. Thursday’s “CBS Morning Show” acknowledged that “a range of implementation details and conditions will be challenges throughout the implementation of the agreement and will continue into the next administration.”
Feiner said President Biden has had “two phone calls with Netanyahu in the past few days, including yesterday after the agreement was reached in Doha.”
The deal is a fragile agreement and its logistics will be extremely complex – even if Hamas safely transports the hostages to a handover point it will pose significant security challenges.
The deal does not take effect until Sunday and comes as Israeli military forces increase Gaza attack Rather than letting their guard down after the deal was signed — and with none of the roughly 100 hostages expected to return home for days — no one on either side of the border who spoke to CBS News seemed ready to take the impending peace seriously As a matter of course. horizon.
In Gaza, ‘a new chance at life’
For Gazans, this is the best news. I was relieved and overjoyed to hear that the relentless bombing of their towns and villages would stop on Sunday.
One young boy who spoke to a CBS News team in the enclave summed it up in three words: “We’re going home!”
Mahmood Kurdia, who has been living in the southern city of Khan Younis after being forced from his home in northern Gaza, said he couldn’t wait to go back, even though he knew he had little to go back to .
“I want to go home and see my family, my neighbors and my home. Even though my home is just in ruins now, I still want to see it. I want to move the rubble away and put my tent up on the roof “I went back to the ruins and said to Israel that I was back,” he told CBS News on Wednesday.
Yet, like everyone else, he was acutely aware that peace was still three days away, if it ever came at all.
Israel appeared to intensify its crackdown on Wednesday night, killing more than 70 people between the announcement of the ceasefire and Thursday morning, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry and the enclave’s civil defense and rescue agency. Both agencies told CBS News the dead included 21 children and 24 women.
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Still, Kudia can’t help but hold out hope.
“This news means a new chance of survival,” he said. “This means a new opportunity for us to be able to live and watch our children live and grow and be educated. It’s just a new hope of survival. This is the ceasefire we hope to have.”
Cousin of Israeli hostage happy – but ‘not breathing’
In Tel Aviv, a small crowd gathered Wednesday night where protesters have gathered week after week to demand that the Israeli government bring the remaining hostages home.
Ifat Calderon is one of them. Her cousin Ofer was one of 251 people kidnapped in the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the militants killing approximately 1,200 people and triggering a war that lasted nearly 480 days.
Ofer was one of dozens kidnapped by gunmen who attacked Kibbutz Nir Oz. He is in his 50s and was supposed to be one of the hostages released by Hamas in the first phase of the three-phase ceasefire agreement.
But when asked if she felt a huge sense of relief Wednesday night, Calderon made it clear that emotion would have to wait.
“No,” she said. “I will feel a huge sense of relief when it’s done. When are we going to get all 90 to 98 hostages alive and get the dead back home.”
Matan Golan/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty
With bombs still falling on Gaza and little sign of any new level of trust between Israel and Hamas, families of hostages across Israel can only wait and worry that things could still go wrong.
“I’m not saying I’m unhappy,” Calderon said. “But I’m trying to, you know, take care of myself and not, you know, I don’t want to – I want to see them first. Until I’m going to see them crossing the U.S. border … I’m not going to believe anything.”
“I can’t breathe until then – we’re taking them all home.”
