Fragile peace as Israel, Hamas swap hostages
Sopuruchi Onwuka, with agency reports
It was a mix of celebration and tears on Sunday as Hamas freed three female Israeli hostages, in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners under ceasefire to suspend the 15 months of war that has spread blood across the Middle East.
The ceasefire became urgent as pressure mounted on both sides of the conflict to provide reprieve to suffering hostages and prisoners and relieving their anxious families and relations.
Besides those in captivity, millions of Gazans remain displaces and in need of urgent aid, while nearly 100 remaining Israeli and foreign hostages need to go home over the six-week first phase in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
While celebrations go on in Gaza and ignorant crowds cheer the Hamas fighters, there has been no apparent gain since the group launched a surprise raid into Southern Israel and killed 1,200 people in hours and abducted 250 residents into Gaza on October 7, 2023.
Many of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas are believed to be dead in the period.
Counter attack by Israeli armed forces have been fiery, leading to many more battle fronts with Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iran.
Hamas officials claim that more than 47,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Israeli attacks, and millions of the population gone homeless as Gaza turned to battlefield.
Apart from victims of October 7, 2023 attack, Israel has counted around 400 of its soldiers dead in battles with Hamas in Gaza, Hazebollah in Lebanon, Houthi Rebels in Yemen, Islamic State in Syria and Iranian forces.
The fragile ceasefire is only a path to uncertainties in ending the war. And Palestinians who return to return to bombed-out neighborhoods to begin rebuilding their lives worry about their future
As Hamas fighters emerge from hiding and acknowledge cheers from the crowd, anger is still high in Israel which has vowed to return to war if Hamas does not dismantle.
Under the prevailing ceasefire, Israeli prisons gave up 69 Palestinian women and 21 teenage boys.
Hamas returned just three female hostages: Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari who returned two fingers less. Damari lost the two fingers when she was shot on the day she was abducted.
“I feel like at last I found some water to drink after being lost in the desert for 15 months,” said Aya, who said she had been displaced from her Gaza City home for more than a year.
But anger is still in the air.
Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded the Gaza Strip when the ceasefire delayed for three hours. Palestinian health authorities said the attack killed 13 people.
Israel blamed Hamas for being late to deliver the names of hostages it would free, and said it had struck terrorists. Hamas said the holdup in providing the list was technical.
“Today the guns in Gaza have gone silent,” U.S. President Joe Biden said on his last full day in office, welcoming a truce that had eluded U.S. diplomacy for more than a year. “We’ve reached this point today because of the pressure Israel built on Hamas, backed by the United States.”
Hamas’s main sponsor, Iran, has remained quiet after it briefly involved in the war and suffered a shock reprisal from Israeli air force. While Iran had attacked Israel with guide4d missiles, Israeli razed through Syria to hit Iranian defence infrastructure in tech-supported precision bombing.
For Hamas, the truce provided an opportunity to emerge from the shadows after 15 months in hiding. Hamas policemen dressed in blue police uniforms swiftly deployed in some areas, and armed fighters drove through the southern city of Khan Younis, where a crowd cheered, “Greetings to Al-Qassam Brigades,” the group’s armed wing.
“All the resistance factions are staying in spite of Netanyahu,” one fighter told Reuters.
The return of Hamas, The Oracle Today reports, renders the fragile peace highly vulnerable. Both Israeli Defence Forces and the United States are opposed to existence of the group and its rule over Gaza.
There is no detailed plan in place to govern Gaza after the war, much less rebuild it. Any return of Hamas will test the patience of Israel, which has said it will resume fighting unless the militant group is fully dismantled, according to a report by Associated Press.
Hardline National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir quit the cabinet over the ceasefire, though his party said it would not try to bring down Netanyahu’s government. The other most prominent hardliner, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, stayed in the government but said he would quit if the war ends without Hamas completely destroyed.
The truce took effect on the eve of Monday’s inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Trump’s national security adviser-designate, Mike Waltz, said that if Hamas reneges on the agreement, the United States would support Israel “in doing what it has to do.”
“Hamas will never govern Gaza. That is completely unacceptable,” he said.
The streets in shattered Gaza City were already busy with groups of people waving the Palestinian flag and filming the scenes on their mobile phones. Several carts loaded with household possessions travelled down a thoroughfare scattered with rubble and debris.
Ahmed Abu Ayham, 40, of Gaza City said that while the ceasefire may have spared lives, the losses and destruction made it no time for celebration.
“We are in pain, deep pain and it is time to hug one another and cry,” he said.
