Worthy Christian News > Israel-Palestinian Conflict > Israel-Hamas Hostage Deal Delayed As Clashes Continue

Israel-Hamas Hostage Deal Delayed As Clashes Continue

By Worthy News’ George Whitten and Stefan J. Bos

JERUSALEM/GAZA (Worthy News) – Exhausted and tearful Israeli families praying and hoping to see their loved ones faced renewed uncertainty Thursday as Israeli officials said a ceasefire and hostage deal will not come into effect until Friday at the earliest.

The families of hostages held in Gaza said they are living in a “nightmare” as they endure an agonizing wait to see if those they love are among the freed hostages.

In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, said talks on the deal continued. He stressed that the hostage release “will begin according to the original agreement between the parties, and not before Friday.”

However, Israeli officials cautioned that the halt in fighting would also not begin on Thursday, as had been widely expected. The delay reportedly happened because the agreement was not signed yet by Hamas and mediator Qatar.

Under the deal, Hamas would free at least 50 of the more than 240 mostly Israeli hostages they took on October 7, many of them women and children.

In turn, Israel would free at least 150 Palestinian prisoners, including women and teenagers, and allow up to 300 trucks of humanitarian aid into Gaza after more than six weeks of fighting.

Israel has continued its ground and air operations in Gaza – after Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed to destroy Hamas, which Israel views as a terrorist organization.

MULTIPLE FRONTS

It also faces multiple other fronts, with Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement confirming that five of its fighters, including the son of a senior lawmaker, have been killed amid skirmishes at the Israel-Lebanon border.

The group said Abbas Raad, son of the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, Mohammed Raad, was “martyred on the road to Jerusalem,” the phrase used to announce the death of its members.

Israel’s army said in statements Wednesday evening that it had struck several Hezbollah targets and sources of fire from Lebanon, including a Hezbollah “terrorist cell” and infrastructure.

Since the cross-border exchanges began, 107 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, according to official estimates. At least 75 are Hezbollah fighters, but the toll reportedly also included at least 14 civilians, three of them journalists.

Seven Hezbollah fighters have also been killed in Syria, sources said. On the Israeli side, six soldiers and three civilians have been killed, according to authorities.

Israel’s main military ally, the United States, faces challenges too, with the US Central Command saying one of its destroyers shot down multiple drones launched from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen early on Thursday.

In a post on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, the central command said the drones were shot down “while the US warship was on patrol in the Red Sea.” No damage or injuries were reported to the ship or its crew.

SEIZING SHIP

Houthi rebels seized a cargo ship in the Red Sea earlier this week and have previously launched drones that were also shot down by US forces.

Israel began attacking Gaza after Hamas fighters crossed the border on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking about 240 others hostage

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says more than 14,000 people – including more than 5,000 children – have been killed in Israel’s campaign, but those figures have been complex to verify independently.

With clashes ongoing, Israel has come under mounting global pressure to extend a ceasefire beyond a planned four days, despite Israeli concerns it would allow Hamas fighters to escape and regroup with more weapons.

Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who visited Beirut Wednesday, warned that if the Hamas-Israel ceasefire begins but “does not continue… the conditions in the region will not remain the same as before the ceasefire and the scope of the war will expand”.

Separately, foreign ministers from Arab and Muslim countries said on a visit to London on Wednesday that the Western powers on the United Nations Security Council should demand that Israel lift its “stranglehold” on humanitarian aid into Gaza or being complicit in Israeli “war crimes and collective punishment.”

Elsewhere, the head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef)called the Gaza Strip “the most dangerous place in the world to be a child” and said that the temporary ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas is “far from enough.”

SECURITY COUNCIL

Catherine Russell told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday that “all children inside the territory” were facing “what could soon become a catastrophic nutrition crisis.”

However, Pope Francis faced criticism for allegedly drawing equivalence between Israel and Hamas.

During his general audience after meeting with Israeli and Palestinian delegations at the Vatican, the pope reportedly remarked: “They suffer so much; I heard how they both suffer.”

He added: “Wars do this, but here we have gone beyond war: this is not war, it is terrorism.”

Jewish groups and others supporting Israel have condemned comparing Israel’s declared war against Hamas with the worst atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust, or Shoah.

Yet, covering the war has become deadly for journalists, with the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) saying more than 50 journalists and media workers have been killed since October 7.