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For US officials, Israeli hostage deal brings joy — and hard questions about how much more war to support

WASHINGTON (JTA) — If the provisions of a likely agreement bear out and Hamas releases dozens of hostages, U.S. officials will celebrate alongside the Israelis.

But then will come the questions about how, and whether, Israel restarts its war to defeat the terror group behind the abductions.

Analysts and scholars with ties to Israel’s government say the country’s security officials are already anticipating those questions, as it appears that Hamas is set to release as many as 50 hostages — mostly women and children — this week. In exchange, Israel will release about three times as many imprisoned Palestinians and will pause its invasion of Gaza for four days.

Jonathan Schanzer, a vice president of the conservative-leaning Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who has been speaking to Israeli government officials, said he expects the initial pause to lead to demands for a longer break in the fighting.

“Once there’s calm there are going to be international efforts to extend the calm because as far as the international community goes, quiet is a good thing,” he said.

Israel has vowed to restart its campaign after the pause, but calls for a long-term ceasefire are already increasing internationally and among Democrats in Congress. Recently, a rising number of Congress members and senators — including some Jewish lawmakers — have voiced calls for a ceasefire or criticized Israel’s conduct in Gaza. About 40 Democrats in total have called for a ceasefire, although a number of their statements are qualified with demands that Hamas be dismantled and all the hostages be released — which are also Israel’s stated goals.

Watching how those Democrats respond during the anticipated pause in fighting will be key to understanding whether support for Israel will further erode, said Kevin Rachlin, the vice president of public affairs for J Street, the liberal Jewish Israel lobby that is influential among Democrats.

He pointed to a letter signed this week by 13 Senate Democrats, including leaders in the caucus, calling on Biden to press Israel to come up with a detailed plan for “sustained humanitarian aid” for the Gaza Palestinians.

“The growing pressure that we’re seeing right now is not just [because of] the civilian death toll but also on the finite definition of what does success look like with this military operation?” Rachlin said. “I think with a pause, that allows more of these questions to come into the forefront. You’ll start to see more members talk and ask about that more forcefully.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Israel during the pause, the Israeli news site Walla reported late Tuesday. It will be his fourth trip to the country since Oct. 7.

The Biden administration continues to back Israel’s war aims — although it too has questions about how Israel will conduct the war once the pause is over. In a call with reporters on Thursday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the administration had questions about how Israel would expand its military campaign in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, considering that Israel previously encouraged hundreds of thousands of civilians to move southward while it waged war with Hamas in the north.

“As they consider moving their operations to the south, we have said we don’t support those kinds of operations absent a cohesive plan by the Israelis to factor in how they’re going to be able to protect what is now mathematically a dramatically increased civilian population, because they were evacuated from the north at Israel’s urging,” he said.

Extending the pause into a ceasefire is not an option for Israel, which has vowed to eradicate Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday evening as his cabinet met to vote on the terms of the hostage release.

“I am here to say the war will continue” after the release, Netanyahu said in a press conference before the vote, which appeared guaranteed to approve the deal. “We will not give up until we achieve absolute victory and we return them all.”

Schanzer said the demands of the Israeli public left no other choice for Netanyahu.

“The Israeli government is or was deemed to be in violation of its contract with the people of the south” on Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists breached Gaza’s border with southern Israel and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducted some 240 people, Schanzer said.

To restore trust with its population, Schanzer said, “from the government’s perspective, the goal is to completely clean out Hamas from the Gaza Strip so that the southern communities can return and live normal peaceful lives. Every Israeli that I’ve talked to since the start of this war has said that there cannot be a return to 10/6.”

In response to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency question, a spokesman for the Biden administration’s National Security Council said its support for Israel’s war against Hamas would not wane, citing a statement from a Hamas spokesman vowing to repeat the Oct. 7 attack.

“What we do not support are calls for Israel to stop defending itself from Hamas terrorists, which is what a permanent ceasefire would be,” the spokesman said, “Hamas has warned that what happened on October 7th ‘will happen again and again and again’ until Israel is annihilated. These comments are horrifying and are an important reminder of how much is at stake.”

Still, it was clear from the spokesman’s reply that the Biden administration still had questions about how Israel will conduct its war once it resumes. Biden officials are not happy with the frequency and extent of the humanitarian pauses Israel has recently agreed to.

“For a humanitarian pause to be fully successful, we have to have in place a system to maximize aid delivery and ensure the protection of humanitarian workers while also working to secure the release of hostages, and prevent the terrorists from using the pause to take advantage,” said the spokesman. “This is complex and we are continuing to work in earnest towards this goal.”

Kirby mentioned one measure of “fully successful” in his call with the media: the amount of humanitarian aid Israel allows into Gaza. “Our incremental goal was about [trucks of aid] 150 a day and we’re not close to achieving that,” Kirby said.

Since Israel struck back, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry says that more than 12,000 people have been killed, including thousands of children. It is not clear what portion of that total number are combatants, or how many have been killed by misfired missiles aimed at Israel.

David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which has close ties to the U.S. and Israeli governments, said the pause would give Israel an opportunity to present to the Biden administration a detailed plan for its next steps.

“It’s a way for Israel to explain to the U.S. what it looks like,” he said of the continuation of the war. “Now you have 2 million people all in the south, and you’re going to have to navigate that,” he said. “That’s where, I think, the U.S. needs to be convinced.”

As of now, Biden stands as a bulwark against pressure for a ceasefire, Makovsky said, but that could change if the war becomes a quagmire with no clear way out.

“He’s going to be supportive but if he feels that Israel is stalled and that it’s not making progress on the objective, then I think there will probably be a reassessment,” he said.


The post For US officials, Israeli hostage deal brings joy — and hard questions about how much more war to support appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

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