INEWS
Efforts to extend the truce in Gaza may depend on Hamas being able to locate the dozens of women and children who were kidnapped by others in the Strip, according to the prime minister of Qatar, which is leading negotiations to free them.
The truce is scheduled to expire on Tuesday at 7am as Israel and Hamas prepare for a fourth exchange of militant-held hostages for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
Israel has said it would extend the ceasefire by one day for every 10 additional hostages that are released.
Hamas has also said it hopes to extend the four-day truce, which came into effect on Friday after several weeks of indirect negotiations mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said he wants to press on with the military campaign to destroy Hamas. But his government is under huge pressure from families of the hostages and key allies to extend the truces to win more releases. On Sunday, he said he had told US president Joe Biden he would be happy to extend the temporary truce if an additional 10 captives were freed every day.
Biden has made clear its desire for an extended ceasefire. He said on Sunday: “That’s my goal, that’s our goal, to keep this pause going beyond tomorrow so that we can continue to see more hostages come out and surge more humanitarian relief into those in need in Gaza.”
But to do this hostages must be exchanged – and Hamas may need to produce additional abductees whom it is claimed were taken by smaller armed gangs and even individuals, during the brutal attacks on Israel on 7 October.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani told the Financial Times that more than 40 other women and children were being kept captive in Gaza who were not believed to be held by Hamas. He said the truce could be extended if Hamas was able to use the pause in the conflict to locate those hostages.
“If they get additional women and children, there will be an extension,” Sheikh Mohammed said. “We don’t yet have any clear information how many they can find because … one of the purposes [of the pause] is they [Hamas] will have time to search for the rest of the missing people.”
The fact that Gazans who were not part of Hamas participated in the violence and abductions was already known.
A source close to the Qatari government also told i that not all the kidnap victims were taken by Hamas militants.
He said: “They don’t know where most of them are being held, so they can’t have any control.”
Another Middle East-based figure, linked to the UN, said that it was “common knowledge” that non-Hamas Gazans had been involved in the attack and abductions on 7 October, and said this would “certainly complicate the hostage situation”.
