On Tuesday morning, Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirms that Israel and Hamas are in the very final phase of negotiations on an interim ceasefire and a prisoner exchange. That’s what Haaretz writes. Here’s what we know so far: Hamas will be willing to partially release around 50 Israeli women and children, in exchange for Israel releasing about the same number of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons, according to The Washington Post. Several media write that there will be talk of a five-day ceasefire. Israel will be willing to release emergency aid, food supplies and fuel into Gaza during the ceasefire, writes The New York Times. The IDF has not commented on the allegations. The hostage case is the most important Hamas took around 239 Israeli hostages during the attack on Israel on 7 October. Only five have been set free. Several must be dead. The Israeli government has said on several occasions that a ceasefire will not be relevant until all the Israeli hostages are safely back in Israel. Getting the Israeli hostages home safely is the most important thing for the Israeli population. Photo: AMIR COHEN / Reuters On Monday evening, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that getting the hostages home safely is a “sacred mission”. – We will not rest until the mission is completed, he said to the hostages’ families. Dag Henrik Tuastad is senior lecturer in Middle Eastern studies at UiO. He says that the hostage issue is what the Israeli population is most concerned about in the ongoing war. – When Netanyahu was early on and said that the most important thing was to remove Hamas, and that the hostage issue was secondary, he had to turn around. Now the hostage case is the primary and overriding issue, says Tuastad. Dag Henrik Tuastad believes that Hamas will get rid of a PR burden if they release Israeli hostages. Photo: Frode Fjerdingstad / Frode Fjerdingstad It’s not so strange, explains Hanne Eggen Røislien. She is a special adviser in the Defense Staff. She believes that protecting its citizens is a guiding principle for the entire military and social structure in Israel, but that it is difficult to quantify how much a hostage is worth. – Every war has its own dynamics, and this explodes all scales. It is difficult to compare with, for example, the Gilad Shalit case, when the numbers are so large. Hanne Eggen Røislien is aware that Israel cannot be as generous in hostage negotiations as in the past. Photo: Ruth Synnøve Barsten / news She points out that Israel went very far when they got Gilad Shalit home after five years of Hamas captivity in 2011. The agreement on his freedom meant that Israel sent 1,027 Palestinian prisoners the opposite way. – They can’t do that now. Israel also says that much of the situation we are in now is the cause of what happened then. They went too far. If Hamas thinks the Shalit case is comparable to the current situation when talking about the value of a hostage, they are wrong. PR disaster But the hostages are still valuable to Hamas, explains Erik Skare. He is a Middle Eastern researcher at the University of Oslo. He believes that kidnapping civilians, especially women and children, is a PR problem for Hamas. He further points out that the brutality of the attack on Israel on 7 October will stick with Hamas forever, and that as a result they have tried to appear humane in the treatment of the hostages. – Therefore, I think the humanitarian appeal of Hamas being able to show that they care about the hostages and take care of their rights is very important and valuable now. Being able to use the hostages to negotiate the supply of emergency aid is also hugely important, believes Skare. Who gets the best out of a deal? The experts agree that Netanyahu and the Israeli government are under great pressure. Getting some of the Israeli hostages home takes away some of this pressure. But basically it is probably Hamas who, according to observers, will benefit the most from the agreement, explains Tuastad. – They get rid of a PR burden and may also need to reorganise. They are the ones who are under pressure on the battlefield, and who have the most to gain from a break, says Tuastad. Røislien seems to have been a raw and brutal war. It is particularly important that the humanitarian cost has been enormous. This has brought great political and diplomatic pressure on Israel. She therefore believes that Israel will also be enraged with an agreement on a ceasefire and the supply of humanitarian aid. Skare believes that getting the hostages home will be very important for the Israeli government. Among other things, Netanyahu has received criticism for not having a plan to get them home. – Netanyahu has also been blamed for sacrificing the hostages in order to survive politically. Getting them home is thus a victory for him and the government. Skare is also aware that the prisoner exchange will have enormous symbolic value in the Palestinian struggle. – Historically, it has provided great political capital. Then it must be said that Hamas’s hostage-taking has seemed somewhat unplanned. Erik Skare is a Middle Eastern researcher at the University of Oslo. Hamas has said that they would execute one hostage for each Palestinian home that was bombed. They didn’t. Now it looks like there will be a prisoner exchange, the researcher points out. What meaning can it have? None of the experts are surprised that there now appears to be an agreement. They emphasize that it does not mean a long-term end to the war. – Now more than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed, and more than 70 percent of the population is internally displaced, says Skare and continues: – Critical Palestinian voices will wonder in retrospect whether it was worth it, if a prisoner exchange and a ceasefire is all they got , says Skare. He believes the agreement is primarily a breathing space, and little else. Nor does Tuastad think the agreement means everything. – Both parties may need to regroup. At the same time, I will not be surprised if a possible ceasefire is broken.
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This is what the experts say about a possible agreement between Hamas and Israel – news Norway – Overview of news from various parts of the country
