There is an opinion on how to navigate a hostage situation
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Biden meets Palestinians in Nahal Oz: “Measurements of Raanan’s family in the Gaza Strip”
About 200 hostages are thought to remain in the hands of Hamas, including dozens of children, according to the IDF, and a small number of Americans, according to U.S. officials. “We will continue to try to get the release of those who are being held,” Biden said.
According to news interviews, the mother and daughter were kidnapped in Israel in October, while they were visiting family.
“Our fellow citizens have endured a terrible ordeal these past 14 days, and I am overjoyed that they will soon be reunited with their family, who has been wracked with fear,” said President Biden in a statement.
The older, also known by her Hebrew name, Yehudit, is an operating room nurse. Her daughter had recently graduated from high school and was taking a gap year to travel, according to Saray Cohen, Raanan’s sister, who spoke with the Israeli public broadcaster Kan.
The pair were received by Israeli military at the border of the Gaza Strip, according to the prime minister’s office. “At the moment, they are on their way to a meeting point at a military base in the center of their country, where their family members are waiting for them,” the statement said.
The Ranaans were staying in a guest house in southern Israel on Oct. 7, when Hamas militants flooded across the Gaza border and into Israeli communities nearby. More than 1,400 people died in the attack, including hundreds of people killed in their homes and at a music festival, Israeli officials say.
Among the towns attacked was Nahal Oz, a quiet, small kibbutz just half a mile from the border with Gaza. Cohen said that family members were in contact with the Raanans even before the fighting began. For hours, they received updates via WhatsApp from the pair, who were hiding in a safe room, according to relatives.
Israeli leaders have said that until all hostages are released, Israel will not lift a siege of Gaza that has cut off food, water, electricity and fuel from the territory that is home to more than 2 million Palestinians.
There are still official talks taking place. Qatar is speaking with Hamas and the United States is speaking with Qatar and Israel. This is too convoluted and complex. Direct talks between Israel, gypsies and Hamas need to take place. Not the United States, and not Iran. The agreement of Hamas to release the two Americans was apparently negotiated by the Qataris and assisted by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Judith and Natalie, the hostages of the July 7 atrocity in Israel and the implications for the security and security of the State of Qatar
“The news that Judith and Natalie have been released gives us overwhelming gratitude to God that our prayers are being heard,” Rabbi Meir Hecht of Chabad of Evanston, who is close to the family, told NPR.
Red Cross officials said they were asking Hamas leaders to offer “proof of life,” such as a message, phone call or video that would prove each person believed to be held captive is alive. The Red Cross is also asking Hamas to allow in medicine and to immediately release the hostages with urgent health needs, like Rut.
Aya Batrawy contributed reporting in Jerusalem; Daniel Estrin and Liz Baker contributed reporting from Tel Aviv; and Deepa Shivaram contributed reporting from Washington.
The nation has been held hostage many times. In May 1974, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine held 115 hostages, most of them high school students in the town of Maalot, in northern Israel, for two days, an episode that ended in the murders of 22 hostages. An Air Force officer, Ron Arad, was shot down over Lebanon in 1986 and was never returned. In exchange for the return of Israeli soldiers captured in Lebanon, Israel released over a thousand Palestinian prisoners.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who used to be the most against negotiating with terrorists, has come to realize that leaving no soldier behind does sometimes need that kind of engagement.
Today, Israel holds about 7,000 Palestinian prisoners, of whom 559 are serving life sentences for killing Israelis, according to Addameer, a Palestinian prisoners’ rights group. Will Israelis, still reeling from the atrocities of Oct. 7, be willing to accept this kind of bargain again? Is it safe to do that? One of the men who killed my wife’s cousin, who was released in exchange for Gilad Schalit, was among the leaders of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, according to Israel’s report of his recent killing.
The US still has a role to play. It should keep up the pressure on the state of qatar, because it should give a 24 hour ultimatum to release the hostages or all of their leaders will be kicked out of the state. The American government and others have leverage over Qatar but I don’t believe it will happen without an Israeli cease-fire.
I believe the trauma and pain that we all feel on both sides of the conflict will spur us to share this land that is sacred to both Israelis and Palestinians. Maybe our collective suffering and pain can be channeled to focusing on how to live together rather than killing each other. That will be a long process and cannot include the leaders on both sides who have brought us to where we are.
Israeli officials have indicated that Hamas took at least 20 children, including toddlers, as well as more than a dozen other people in their 60s, 70s and 80s, including people with Parkinson’s disease. On top of that, several hostages were gravely wounded by gunshots and grenades during the terrorist attack.
In the past 10 days, he said, the Red Cross has met face to face and held numerous telephone calls with Hamas officials, but, “considering the level of violence in Gaza, I see it as extremely complicated for us to do our work.”
“The starting point — and I have a hard time getting away from this — is that there are people who should never be there,” said Fabrizio Carboni, the organization’s regional director for the Near and Middle East, in an interview this past week.
The ones with specific medical conditions should be released more than the others. “There is no way easily to provide the medical help they need in Gaza today,” he added. “We asked for it. Today we are very far away from it.
