“As part of the prisoner exchange, the (Ezzedine) al-Qassam Brigades decided to release (Saturday) four female soldiers,” Abou Obeida, spokesperson for Hamas’ armed wing, said on Telegram on Friday. The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately confirmed having received, via mediators, a “list of hostages” who could be released without further details.
Israel simultaneously announced that it would not withdraw from southern Lebanon on Sunday, as stipulated in the ceasefire agreement signed with Beirut at the end of November to end two months of open war with Hezbollah.
Prisoners. The four hostages, held in Gaza since October 7, 2023, are to be exchanged for an unknown number of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. “The al-Qassam Brigades and other groups (…) will release the four prisoners on Saturday” and will hand them over to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said a source close to Hamas on condition of anonymity. , without time precision.
The first phase of the current truce, which is to last six weeks and began on Sunday, should allow the release of 33 hostages against some 1,900 Palestinian prisoners. Three young women having already been released last weekend, in exchange for the release of 90 Palestinians from prison, there will then remain 26 hostages available for release in this first phase. The names were communicated but without chronological order of release.
Offensive. The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people on the Israeli side, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data. Of the 251 people kidnapped, 91 are still in Gaza, including 34 dead according to the army. Others were announced dead by Hamas but without Israeli confirmation, plunging families into terrible doubt. In retaliation for October 7, Israel launched a devastating offensive in the besieged Gaza Strip, which left at least 47,283 dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas Health Ministry. The operation caused a humanitarian disaster.
The truce has generally been respected since Sunday, apart from a few incidents. According to the agreement, after the release of the four new hostages, those displaced “in the south of the Gaza Strip will begin to return to the north,” said the Hamas official. “An Egyptian-Qatari committee will supervise the implementation of the agreement on the ground.” “The deal should hold, but if it doesn’t, there will be a lot of problems,” US President Donald Trump warned reporters on Thursday.
Accord. On the Lebanese border, the other ceasefire involving Israel, this time with Hezbollah, still held on Friday. But Mr. Netanyahu made it known that the withdrawal of his troops from southern Lebanon “would continue” beyond the 60 days provided for in the agreement, i.e. this Sunday.
As the planned arrangements “have not been fully accomplished by Lebanon, the phased withdrawal process will continue in agreement with the United States,” his office indicated. One of the clauses stipulated that “the Lebanese army deploys in southern Lebanon” and imposes “the withdrawal of Hezbollah beyond the Litani (river)”, he added in a press release.
-Destruction. Believing that this is not the case, Israel will “achieve the objectives of the war” to allow its residents displaced from the border area to return “in safety”. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun demanded on Saturday that this Israeli withdrawal be done “within the set deadlines”. He also denounced “the continuation of Israeli violations”, deploring “the dynamiting of houses and the destruction of border villages”.
The Lebanese authorities did not initially react to Israel’s announcement. In a statement, Hezbollah for its part affirmed on Thursday that failure to respect the Sunday deadline would constitute “a flagrant violation of the agreement and a new attack on Lebanese sovereignty”.
Bastion. At the same time, Israeli soldiers continued an operation called “Iron Wall” in Jenin, one of the bastions of Palestinian resistance, on Friday in the occupied West Bank for the fourth consecutive day.
Hundreds of Palestinians left the vast refugee camp of this town in the north of the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 on Thursday. The UN, for its part, denounced the use of “methods of war” and “the illegal use of lethal force” by Israel. The UN Human Rights Office confirmed the Palestinian death toll of 12 Palestinians killed and some 40 injured, adding that most of them “were apparently unarmed.”
Didier LAURAS
© Agence France-Presse
