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At a small Tel Aviv protest ahead of the Israel-Hamas hostage deal, families feel hope and uncertainty
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Wearing a face that bore the marks of 47 days of anguished waiting, Hadas Kalderon took to the streets to block traffic on a central Tel Aviv thoroughfare next to Israel’s military headquarters.
Kalderon was demanding that Israel’s leaders, who were meeting in the complex, approve a deal to release at least 50 of the hostages held by Hamas — including, possibly, her son and daughter.
“We want them all back, I will fight to the end until everyone comes back,” said Kalderon, whose 16-year-old daughter Sahar, 12-year-old son Erez and their father — her ex-husband, Ofer — were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7. They are among the approximately 240 hostages held by Hamas and other terror groups in Gaza, abducted during the attack that day.
The deal set to be approved by Israel’s government on Tuesday will free at least 50 Israeli hostages — among them women, children and the elderly — in exchange for some 150 Palestinian women and minors in Israeli prison on security offenses. Israel has also agreed to a four-day pause in its war against Hamas in Gaza.
Kalderon understood that this hostage deal won’t bring the entire family home. But she sees it as a crucial first step.
“The father of my children is there, I want my children to have a father but we have to live in reality,” she said of the proposed deal, which will reportedly exclude men and soldiers. “At first we must take out the weak. Babies, children and elderly will not survive. And then it will be open to bring them all.”
Compared to recent protests that brought tens of thousands of Israelis to the streets, and even a march from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem last week that drew many supporters to call for freeing the hostages, only a small group of approximately 100 Israelis gathered Tuesday night to call for the hostage deal’s approval. In spite of the small crowd blocking the busy Begin Boulevard, police made no effort to disperse the crowd and even some of the stranded motorists showed little of the frustration they have displayed about previous protests.
“It is good that they are doing this,” said a driver of a stalled Egged bus. Referring to a massive protest movement that spread across Israel for much of the year prior to Oct. 7, he said, “It is not like the judicial reforms. These are Israeli citizens captive in Gaza, it is much more important.”
Despite the milestone deal, there were few signs of celebration in light of the deal’s fraught implications for those not included.
“The deal is not simple,” said Shir Sella, a 24-year-old cousin of the Kalderon family. “We are very worried that it will make it harder to release the men and it is a question of what we are giving up. … I feel like the government betrayed us by not protecting us.”
Concerns have also simmered over what kinds of dangers a multi-day pause in fighting might pose to Israeli soldiers fighting in Gaza; Israeli officials have said the soldiers would remain in place during the truce. Soldiers who are being held hostage are also not being released.
“As a mother of a soldier in captivity, I would be terrified,” said Michal Roth, whose son is serving in Gaza as a soldier.
“It is such an unhuman dilemma that we are in and I think that Hamas is trying to tear us apart with this deal,” Roth added. “But there is no win-win and even with my own child in Gaza, as a mother my thoughts are with the kids held captive and not him.”
On the other side of the road, a small group of counter-protesters gathered to express opposition to the hostage deal, a view mainly reflected by the far-right political parties in Israel’s parliament who vowed to vote against the deal. Limor Son Har-Melech, a right-wing member of Knesset from Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party, stood at a distance from both protests.
“It pains me to see the split,” she said. “I have good relations with families on the other side calling for a deal but I think it is a very dangerous deal for us.”
Son Har-Melech was badly injured while pregnant in a terrorist attack in 2003 that killed her first husband, Shuli Har-Melech. Terrorists who carried out that attack were among about 1,000 Palestinians released from Israeli prisons in 2011 as part of a deal with Hamas to free the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, she said.
“We do not learn from history — we need to learn from the Shalit deal,” Son Har-Melech said, noting that current Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was also released at the time.
“Hamas is abusing our weaknesses and there would be a better chance to return them all if we showed strength,” she said, adding that “if we do not have unity we lose anyways.”
Atara Levy, an activist with Women Wage Peace, came to the protest to show solidarity for her friend Netta Heiman, whose 84-year old mother Ditza was taken captive from Kibbutz Nir Oz. (Vivan Silver, one of the group’s cofounders, was murdered on Oct. 7 in her home on Kibbutz Be’eri. She had been thought to be one of the captives until her body was discovered.)
“We need a diplomatic solution and there is no choice but to accept the deal,” Levy said. “I am not sure if this is a step towards peace, but it is definitely a step in the right direction for the nation to survive, because a state that cannot return its captives has no legitimacy.”
While Levy does not have much hope for the country’s leadership, tomorrow she will join a zoom meeting with “hundreds” of Palestinian women from the West Bank and Gaza who want peace and “are supporting us, that we are one.”
Efrat, a protester from Tel Aviv who declined to share her last name, said that she feels “horrible” about the deal — because of how much pain and uncertainty remains.
“Even if 50 are brought home, there are still more than 150 left behind,” she said. “I do not feel like I can be okay as a citizen of Israel or as a human being without them all home.”
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
The post Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
The post Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
The post Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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