Families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas have called for all parties to immediately accept the latest ceasefire proposal to end the war and bring their relatives home, but Israel remains opposed.
US President Joe Biden outlined the three-phase deal proposed by Israel to Hamas on Friday, saying the militant group was “no longer capable” of carrying out another large-scale attack on Israel.
He urged Israel and Hamas to come to an agreement to release some 100 remaining hostages, along with the bodies of around 30 more, for an extended ceasefire in Gaza.
Truce talks ground to a halt last month after a major push by the US and other mediators to secure a deal in hopes of averting a full Israeli invasion of Gaza’s southern city of Rafah.
Israel says the Rafah operation is vital to uprooting Hamas fighters responsible for the October 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war.
Israel on Friday confirmed its troops were operating in central parts of the city.
The ground assault has led to an exodus of around 1 million Palestinians out of the city and has thrown UN humanitarian operations based in the area into turmoil.
Following Mr Biden’s speech, hostage families said time was running out with the onus on both sides to accept the deal.
Gili Roman’s sister, Yarden Roman-Gat, was taken hostage and freed during a week-long ceasefire in November but her sister-in-law, Carmel, is still held captive.
“We want to see people coming back from Gaza alive and soon,” Mr Roman told The Associated Press.
“This might be the last chance to save lives. Therefore, the current state must be changed and we expect all to adhere to Biden’s call for accepting the deal on the table, immediately.
“There is no other way towards a better situation for all. Our leadership must not disappoint us. But mostly, all eyes should be on Hamas,” he said.
The proposal came after what hostage families said was an aggressive meeting on Thursday with Israel’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, who told them that the government was not ready to sign a deal to bring all of the hostages home and that there was no plan B.
Mr Hanegbi said this week he expected the war to drag on for another seven months, to destroy the military and governing capabilities of Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group.
Benjamin Netanyahu has promised a “total victory” that would remove Hamas from power, dismantle its military structure and return the hostages, and on Saturday, the government said its conditions for ending the war had not changed.
Putting a permanent ceasefire in place before the conditions were fulfilled was a “non-starter,” it said.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid urged Mr Netanyahu to agree to a hostages and ceasefire deal, saying his party would support it even if right-wing factions in the governing coalition rebelled, meaning a deal would likely pass in parliament.
“The government of Israel cannot ignore President Biden’s consequential speech. There is a deal on the table and it should be made,” Mr Lapid said in a social media post on Saturday.
Many hostage families blame the government’s lack of will to secure a deal for the deaths of many of the hostages in captivity.
Sharone Lifschitz is one person critical of the government.
Her mother was freed in the November ceasefire but her father Oded is still being held hostage.
“We know that the government of Israel has done an awful lot to delay reaching a deal and that has cost the lives of many people who survived in captivity for weeks and weeks and months and months,” she said.
“Our hearts are broken by the amount of people we will receive that are no longer alive.”
Experts praise Biden
The first phase of the latest deal would last for six weeks and include:
- a “full and complete ceasefire”
- a withdrawal of Israeli forces from all densely populated areas of Gaza
- the release of a number of hostages, including women, the elderly and the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners
The second phase would include the release of all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers, and Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza.
The third phase calls for the start of a major reconstruction of Gaza, which faces decades of rebuilding from devastation caused by the war.
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Mr Biden acknowledged that keeping the Israeli proposal on track would be difficult, saying there were a number of “details to negotiate” to move from the first phase to the second.
He said that if Hamas failed to fulfil its commitment under the deal, Israel could resume military operations.
Hamas said in a statement on Friday it viewed the proposal presented by Joe Biden “positively” and called on the Israelis to declare explicit commitment to an agreement that included a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, a prisoner exchange and other conditions.
While the proposal is similar to previous ones, the main difference is the readiness to stop the war for an undefined period, according to analysts.
Head of the Palestinian Studies Forum in Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, Michael Milshtein, said it still left Israel the option to renew the war and diminish Hamas’s ability to govern, but over time.
Other experts, including director for the Middle East at the International Communities Organization Gershon Baskin, said Joe Biden’s speech was one of the first times in the war that provided hope that it might end and bring the hostages home.
“It was a very good speech … it seems that Biden is trying to force it on the Israeli government, he was clearly speaking directly to the Israeli people,” he said.
AP/ABC