After the joint statement of 18 countries which call for the immediate release of hostages, Hamas rejected such a call and doubled down on the insistence that there could be no release without the end of the war. On the other hand, many on the Israeli side insist that this should be done before any talks of ceasefire happen. On top of that, while Hamas proposes a ceasefire which would be instated immediately, which would go through more stages that would effectively mean a permanent ceasefire, there is little appetite for such an accord from, I’d dare to say, most of the Israeli side.
In the last article we have talked about this stalemate which looks to be here to stay, unfortunately – neither side is willing to concede. Israelis cannot fathom the thought of living next to Hamas, the internationally recognized terrorist organization which delivered a devastating blow on October 7, with a permanent ceasefire that would, in their opinion, perpetuate the killing cycle which has started more than 70 years ago, and a Hamas that equates the release of hostages before a settlement is reached, with a loss of leverage which would threaten its existence more than it already is. Both sides consider it existential.
There is again more talk about a Rafah operation which is bound to happen eventually if Hamas does not release the hostages. In this particular instance, the international appetite for such a thing from the IDF was almost inexistent before the Iran strikes, which, reignited the world and made it rally once again to Israel’s side. Israel is planning, amidst intensifying strikes in Rafah, to evacuate civilians and then finally launching said operation. It also seems that Israel has resumed bombing campaigns throughout the Gaza Strip.
Hamas has also ramped up its rhetoric through an official which declared perpetual war on Israel after October 7, by bringing up the “revived” 2-state solution and proposing laying arms in exchange for an independent Palestinian state in its pre-1967 borders, a five-year truce and to transform from its current “form” into a political party. Again, this is intuitively easy to understand why it would be rejected by Israel, but the effect is to once again pile on the international pressure on it.
All of this exchange is probably being seen as exasperating by many international stakeholders and, we can probably assume that by many of the civilians from Gaza as well since they are bearing the heaviest blows, undoubtedly.
On the 24th of April, Hamas released an undated video showing an Israeli hostage which prompted more protests from the relatives of those in captivity which are trying to pressure the Israel government to go forth with a ceasefire which would see their release. This video came as a request by the US to check the status of its citizens among those taken hostage back on the 7th of October.
The Palestinian ambassador to Cairo claimed that between eighty thousand and one hundred thousand Palestinians had crossed into Egypt without specifying how, since the Egyptian authorities had clearly stated it does not wish a repeat of the 1948 Nabka scenario to happen.
UNRWA has announced that a number of countries which had suspended their funding for the international agency back in January, had come back and restarted their programs after the release of neutrality report.