On day three of the hostages-for-fighting pause deal, Hamas released 17 more captives on Sunday, which included a four-year-old American girl. As many as 39 Palestinian prisoners languishing in various Israeli jails were also released on Sunday. All of them are boys aged between 18 and 14.
The released hostages included a Russian-Israeli citizen who was reportedly let go at Putin’s request and three Thai citizens. The hostages were successfully transferred from Gaza by the International Committee of the Red Cross. However, unlike previous releases, which took place at the Rafah crossing in southern Gaza, 13 of the Israelis were transferred through the border fence in the Strip’s north.
U.S. President Joe Biden, who welcomed the release of four-year-old US citizen Avigail Idan, said he hoped the ceasefire could continue as long as hostages are getting released. He hoped more Americans would be released by Hamas, though he did not have firm news. Edan had witnessed her parents being killed by Hamas fighters during their October 7 raid into Israel and had been held since then. "What she endured is unthinkable," Biden told reporters at a news conference.
Biden also spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the hostage release. Netanyahu said he would welcome extending a temporary truce if it meant that on every additional day, 10 captives would be freed. However, Netanyahu is said to have told Biden that Israel would "return with full force to achieve our goals: The elimination of Hamas, ensuring that Gaza does not return to what it was; and of course the release of all our hostages" at the end of the truce.
"I am sure that we will succeed in this mission — because we have no other choice," he added.
This comes as Hamas sought an extension of the four-day truce with Israel beyond Monday. A statement from the militant group said it wants "to extend the truce after the four-day period ends, through serious efforts to increase the number of those released from imprisonment as stipulated in the humanitarian ceasefire agreement."
Besides Hamas, both key players - Qatar and Egypt - have called for an extension of fighting pause. "What we are hoping for is that the momentum that has carried from the releases … and from this agreement of four days will allow us to extend the truce beyond these four days, and therefore get into more serious discussions about the rest of the hostages," Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Majed Al-Ansari, told CNN on Saturday.
Israel's war cabinet is said to have discussed the possibility on Sunday but insisted that conditions remain unchanged: Hamas would need to release an additional 10 hostages for each additional day’s pause in the fighting, reported CNN.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told ABC News on Sunday that the pause could be extended for another day, or two days, or three days or even more. "The ball is in Hamas’s court on that because what Israel has said is that it is prepared to pause another day of fighting for every 10 hostages that Hamas releases," he said. "If the pause stops, the responsibility for that rests on the shoulders of Hamas, not on the shoulders of Israel," the top Biden aide asserted.
