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Despite a four-day humanitarian ceasefire agreed to by the two sides, Israel’s conflict with Hamas is anticipated to go at least two months longer, according to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
“This will be a brief pause. When it ends, the fighting will continue forcefully, and will create pressure that will allow the return of more hostages,” CNN quoted Gallant as saying while visiting Israeli troops on Thursday.
“A fighting of at least two more months is expected,” he added.
The Israeli military has said the hostage handover process will be “complicated”, warning there could be changes in the deal at any moment.
Addressing the media on Thursday, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that “nothing is finalised until it’s actually happening.
“And even amid the process, changes might occur at any moment,” he said.
The spokesperson also confirmed that the Israeli army continues to fight in the Gaza Strip “at this hour,” pointing out that once the pause goes into effect, the IDF soldiers will be stationed along the “truce lines” established inside the strip.
According to an IDF official, the truce line effectively keeps Israeli troops in northern Gaza, and they will not move south during the cease-fire.
Meanwhile, Israel has alerted the relatives of the captives expected to be released on Friday, according to Gal Hirsch, the country’s coordinator for hostages and missing persons.
Hirsch said “liaison officers have informed all of those families whose loved ones appear on the list, as well as all of the hostages’ families”.
Israel has released a list of 300 names of people who are eligible for release as part of the swap.
The great majority are male youths between the ages of 16 and 18, with a few as young as 14.
The first hostages likely to be released will be members of the same families, Qatar Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Majed Al-Ansari said earlier Thursday during a news conference.
They will be 13 in number, all women and children, and those hostages who are from the same family will be put together in the same batch,” CNN quoted Al-Ansari as saying.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group set up in response to the Hamas attack on Israel, lists 201 Israelis believed to be alive and held hostage in Gaza since October 7.
That list of Israeli hostages includes 39 children aged 18 and under; 44 adult women and 89 adult men aged 19 to 64; and 29 people aged 65 and over.
The youngest is Kfir Bibas, who is 10 months old; the oldest are Yafa Adar, Shlomo Mansour and Arye Zalmanovich, who are all 85.
The estimated overall number of captives, which includes Americans and other foreign nationals, fluctuates with the newest intelligence, but remained at 236 earlier this week, according to the IDF.
According to CNN, a Palestinian official with a key role in the scheduled prisoner release has not yet received a list of names of those due to be released on Friday.
Qadura Fares, the president of the Palestinian Commission for Detainees and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs, stated that a first wave of 30 to 35 people would be released.
He stated that all inmates would be released at the Beitunia crossing, which is located just south of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
There are 33 women on the list.
Source:IANS
