Israel's government and Hamas agreed on Wednesday to a four-day pause in fighting to allow the release of 50 hostages held in Gaza in exchange for 150 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, and the entry of humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave.

GAZA/TEL AVIV, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Israel’s government and Hamas agreed on Wednesday to a four-day pause in fighting to allow the release of 50 hostages held in Gaza in exchange for 150 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, and the entry of humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave.

  • Andy@slrpnk.netEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    This is such good news. Now the challenge is to keep both sides from reigniting.

    I don’t really know what Hamas and Haniyeh and Sinwar want, so it’s hard to speculate what they’ll do, but I know that Netanyahu is trying to reignite the war as hard as he can, and will be desperate to see the ceasefire ended prematurely under circumstances he can blame on Hamas.

    For those who haven’t followed his career (and his actions in the least week in particular) this seems abundantly clear. The absolute worst thing that could happen to him would be a deescalation that leads to an political negotiations. I really hope the US antiwar movement is prepared to increase their pressure, because I believe it’s made the difference in getting us this far. As furious as I’ve been at Biden’s response, I have read multiple reports that the US was far more involved in hostage negotiations than Israel, so I will give Biden this sliver of credit if people actually come home. But he really needs to stop propping up Bibi if he wants to land this plane for real.

    • Hatsune Miku @lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      This is such good news. Now the challenge is to keep both sides from reigniting.

      There was a ceasefire already in place prior to the 7th of October attacks

    • hydro033@kbin.social
      0·
      1 year ago

      I don’t really know what Hamas and Haniyeh and Sinwar want

      Are you serious? They want the complete destruction of Israel. Have you never read anything Hamas has put out?

        • jaybone@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          1 year ago

          And these 150 prisoners are Hamas terrorists that will be exchanged for 50 innocent civilians.

          So hamas will have more terrorists on their side to fan the flames for Netinyahu’s next response.

        • Mrkawfee@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          1 year ago

          Yes Israel paints them as Nazi Isis but it’s more accurate to view them as the Viet Cong. They are fighting an anti colonial war.

      • PugJesus@kbin.social
        0·
        1 year ago

        I think they might mean “want in an immediate sense”. Even Hamas isn’t deluded enough to think that they’re capable of destroying Israel at this moment.

        • Alto@kbin.social
          0·
          1 year ago

          No, but they knew exactly what the Israeli reaction would be, and that said reaction would end up providing a wave of freshly minted fighters.

          • PugJesus@kbin.social
            0·
            1 year ago

            Yeah, but I mean, what is their goal now? Like, in the next few months kind of immediate, the kind of immediate that would cause them to accept a truce? Freshly minted fighters don’t mean much if Israel gets away with ethnic cleansing, after all.

            • Mrkawfee@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              1 year ago

              Goal now is to get Israel to withdraw and use hostages to extract concessions including the release of kidnapped Palestinians in Israeli jails and humanitarian aid for beleaguered civilians. The military hostages are probably the highest value from a negotiation standpoint and will be kept the longest.

      • Andy@slrpnk.netEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        This is so dumb and reductive, though.

        First, that goal is like trying to drink the ocean. It’s obviously impossible, so it’s not useful as an indicator for what they’ll agree to.

        Second, we hear this over and over, but the only citation is their founding document over thirty years ago. And in 2006 they went through a moderate rebrand, and then a lot of people in the org died, and Sinwar spent two decades in Israeli prison, so… that doesn’t really tell us where they’re at in this moment.

        Folks act like they’re orcs. Just mindlessly evil. They’re definitely completely ruthless, but the stuff they do isn’t that different from what the IRA did, and they still made peace. So what does Sinwar want? Has anyone thought to ask?