TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas have called on all sides to immediately accept a proposal from U.S. President Joe Biden to end the nearly eight-month war and bring their relatives home , but the Israeli government said the conditions for a ceasefire must still be met.
Biden on Friday outlined a three-phase deal that Israel proposed to Hamas, saying the militant group is “no longer capable” of carrying out another large-scale attack on Israel. He urged Israelis and Hamas to reach an agreement on the release of some 100 remaining hostages, along with the bodies of another 30, ahead of a long-term ceasefire in Gaza.
Ceasefire talks stalled last month after a major push by the US and other mediators to reach an agreement in the hope of preventing a full-scale Israeli invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Israel says the Rafah operation is essential to uproot Hamas fighters responsible for the October 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war.
Israel confirmed on Friday that its forces were operating in central parts of the city. The ground assault has prompted an exodus of about 1 million Palestinians from the city and thrown UN humanitarian operations in the area into turmoil.
After Biden’s speech, hostage families said that time was running out on Saturday and that it was up to both Israel and Hamas to accept the deal.
“We want people to come back from Gaza alive and quickly,” Gili Roman told The Associated Press. His sister, Yarden Roman-Gat, was taken hostage and released during a week-long ceasefire in November, but Yarden Carmel’s sister-in-law is still being held.
“This may be the last chance to save lives. Therefore, the current situation must be changed and we expect that everyone will adhere to Biden’s call to immediately accept the deal on the table. There is no other way to a better situation for everyone. Our leadership must not let us down. But above all, all eyes must be on Hamas,” he said.
The proposal came after what the hostage families said was an aggressive meeting Thursday with Israeli National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi, who told them the government was not ready to sign a deal to bring all the hostages home and that there was no Plan B used to be. .
Hanegbi said this week that he expects the war to continue for another seven months to destroy the military and governance capabilities of Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group.
Netanyahu has promised a “total victory” that would remove Hamas from power, dismantle its military structure and return the hostages. On Saturday the government said the conditions for ending the war had not changed. Imposing a permanent ceasefire before the conditions are met is a “non-starter,” the report said.
Many hostage families blame the government’s lack of will to make a deal for the deaths of many of the hostages in captivity.
“We know that the government of Israel has done a tremendous amount to delay reaching an agreement and that has cost the lives of many people who have survived weeks and weeks and months and months in captivity. Our hearts are broken by the number of people we will receive who are no longer alive,” Sharone Lipschitz told AP. Her mother Yocheved was released during the November ceasefire, and her father Oded remains in captivity.
The first phase of the deal announced by Biden would last six weeks and include a “full and complete ceasefire,” a withdrawal of Israeli troops from all densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of a number of hostages, including women. , elderly and injured, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
The second phase would include the release of all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers, and Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza. The third phase calls for the start of a large-scale reconstruction of Gaza, which faces decades of rebuilding after the devastation caused by the war.
Biden acknowledged that it would be difficult to keep the Israeli proposal on track, saying some “details needed to be negotiated” to move from the first phase to the second. The proposal states that if negotiations for phase one last longer than six weeks, the ceasefire will still continue as long as negotiations continue. Israel will always have the right to defend itself against security threats. Biden said that if Hamas does not fulfill its promise under the deal, Israel could resume military operations.
Hamas said in a statement on Friday that it assessed Biden’s proposal “positively” and called on Israelis to explicitly commit to an agreement that would include a permanent ceasefire, a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, an exchange of prisoners and includes other matters. conditions.
While the proposal is similar to previous proposals, the main difference, analysts say, is the willingness to stop the war indefinitely. It still leaves Israel the option to renew the war and reduce Hamas’s ability to govern, but over time, says Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at Tel Aviv University’s Dayan Center.
Still, experts say Biden’s speech was one of the first times in the war that gave hope that it would end and bring the hostages home.
“It was a very good speech… it seems like Biden is trying to impose it on the Israeli government, he was clearly speaking directly to the Israeli people,” said Gershon Baskin, Middle East director at the International Communities Organization. Israelis must take to the streets to demand that Israel’s government accept this, he said.
The international community is also calling for the proposal to be accepted. On Saturday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called it an “urgent hope” for lasting peace. She said it is now up to Hamas to show that they want to end the conflict.
Meanwhile, fighting in Gaza continued.
On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had killed a Hamas fighter responsible for leading attacks on Israel and the West Bank and earlier this week it said its plane had killed a Hamas fighter in central Gaza who headed the technology department of the internal security forces.
Israel began its war in Gaza after Hamas’s attack on October 7, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people – mostly civilians – and kidnapping about 250. More than 36,170 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israel’s bombing and offensive campaign. This is reported by the Gaza Ministry of Health. The count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
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Associated Press writer David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
