RSS
What we know — and don’t yet — about the hostage deal to release Israelis held by Hamas

(JTA) — When it attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and wounding thousands, Hamas also took an estimated 240 people hostage. Following weeks of breathless advocacy, protest and anxiety that spread across the world, some of those captives are about to be released in a deal between Israel and Hamas.
The hostages range from Israeli soldiers to the elderly to small children. The deal expected on Tuesday would free children, women and some of the oldest hostages in exchange for women and youths held by Israel on national security charges and would trigger a pause in the war between Israel and Hamas. It would be Israel’s first prisoner exchange with Hamas in more than a decade and by far the largest in history.
The agreement is a milestone in what has become a worldwide campaign, led by the captives’ relatives, to raise awareness of their plight and push for their release. The movement has seen cities across the globe papered with posters bearing the hostages’ faces and names (many of which have been taken down) and empty Shabbat dinner tables set up from Tel Aviv to New York City’s Times Square to represent the captives. A call to release the hostages was a central demand of the rally that brought more than 200,000 Jews to a rally in Washington, D.C. last week.
And the deal may be just the first stage in ongoing negotiations to bring the six-week-old war to an end. Here’s what you need to know about the impending agreement, what it might mean and what we still don’t know.
How many hostages will be released and who are they?
Under the reported deal, 50 hostages will be released each day during the initial pause, likely starting on Friday. Afterward, Hamas can extend the truce by releasing an additional 10 hostages a day. Up to 80 hostages could be released.
The first tranche of hostages to be released will include children held by Hamas — a number Israel estimates at 40. They include a 10-month-old baby and his 4-year-old sister, Kfir and Ariel Bibas; Abigail Mor Idan, 3, a U.S. citizen who is being held without anyone else in her family; Emily Hand, whose parents first believed her to be dead and who just turned 9 in captivity; Erez and Sahar Kalderon, whose grandmother and cousin were murdered; and Yigal Yaakov, 13, who appeared in a hostage video released earlier this month.
Israel reportedly pressed hard for mothers to be released with their children, and Israeli reports suggest that demand is being met. Elderly women who are held hostage are also expected to be released as part of the deal.
What about the rest of the hostages?
About a month ago, Hamas released two women, ages 79 and 85; the husband of one of them is still being held by Hamas. Hamas also released an American mother and daughter last month. Neither of those releases was subject to an agreement with Israel. Israel rescued one hostage, a soldier, on Oct. 30.
In addition, some of the hostages are known to have died after being taken captive. Others were severely injured before being abducted to Gaza. The condition and location of the remaining hostages may not easily be known. Even those who are alive could be hard to find, in a region where the vast majority of people have been displaced since Oct. 7.
Some of the hostages are soldiers and do not appear to be represented in the deal at all. It also appears that adult men who are not soldiers are not set for imminent release.
Notably, the deal applies only to Israeli hostages. Perhaps dozens of the hostages are foreign nationals who were in Israel as guest workers, including Thai and Filipino citizens and students from Tanzania. (One of them, Clemence Matanga, died in Gaza.) Hamas also took about a dozen U.S. citizens hostage, though most if not all hold Israeli citizenship as well.
Some hostages are not in Hamas’ control. Hostages were held by three different terrorist groups in Gaza: Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and a smaller militia. Negotiations have involved only Hamas, which controls Gaza. According to Israeli reports, only 30 of the estimated 40 child hostages are being held by Hamas.
What is Israel giving up to get the hostages back?
According to the contours of the deal reported by Israeli media, Israel will release three Palestinian prisoners for every hostage released, meaning that up to 240 Palestinians will go free. That represents only a tiny fraction of the approximately 5,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons prior to Oct. 7.
It’s also a much smaller number than the 1,000 prisoners Israel released in 2011 in exchange for Gilad Shalit, a soldier who Hamas had taken hostage five years earlier. As opposed to the 2011 exchange, this time Israel says it has agreed only to release women and minors who did not kill anyone.
Israel is also agreeing to pause its offensive in Gaza for at least four days and to suspend aerial surveillance for six hours a day during that time, in part so Hamas can locate additional hostages. Israeli soldiers will remain in northern Gaza, which they invaded last month, during the pause.
The number of trucks bringing in humanitarian aid during the pause will increase under the terms of the deal. Two weeks ago, Israel began allowing 100 trucks a day into Gaza, a goal the United States had laid out. Under the deal, that number will increase to 200 a day.
How will this affect Israel’s war against Hamas?
A big question is whether and to what extent Israel’s war in Gaza will continue after this group of hostages are released. Israel says it plans to resume fighting as soon as the truce expires. But a provision in the reported terms of the deal allows for an extension of the truce if Hamas releases more hostages — 10 freed captives for each additional day of calm.
A lot can happen during a pause in fighting: Both sides can regroup, but there could also be continued talks that would lay the groundwork for a more lasting cessation of hostilities — something protesters around the world and a small but growing group of Democratic lawmakers in the United States support. Israel has so far rejected calls for a permanent ceasefire because its stated goal is to depose Hamas.
Previous Israel-Hamas humanitarian pauses have also been broken — plunging both sides back into the fighting.
Plus, international sentiment that has been firmly on Israel’s side up to now could shift. Some, though not all, of Israel’s goals have been met, and a pause in the fighting may allow humanitarian groups to assess the devastation. Already, the United States is signaling that it may not support an expansion of Israel’s military campaign in southern Gaza without stronger assurances from Israel that it will protect civilians.
According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, more than 12,000 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting, though the number does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, and does not say how many have been killed by misfired Palestinian rockets.
Who helped broker the deal?
Both the United States and Qatar acted as go-betweens for Israel and Hamas, which refuse to negotiate directly. Both are already involved in the fighting: The United States has stood firmly behind Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and provides it with aid, while Qatar is the home base of Hamas’ political leadership.
This is far from the first time Israel and Hamas have conducted indirect negotiations. During their last major round of conflict, in 2021, Egypt brokered a ceasefire with the support of Jordan and the United States.
Does everyone in Israel support the deal?
No. Members of the far-right bloc in the government said they oppose a deal, calling it short-sighted. The Religious Zionist party, led by Bezalel Smotrich, issued a statement calling it “bad for Israel’s security, bad for the hostages, and bad for the soldiers of the IDF.”
Their argument is that sending Palestinian prisoners back into Gaza lays the groundwork for future attacks. Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of Oct. 7, was released from an Israeli prison in the 2011 prisoner exchange. The far-right lawmakers also say Israel will be demonstrating that it is willing to make compromises to win back hostages, potentially raising the cost to get the rest of the hostages out.
Family members of the hostages have clashed with the far right in calling for their relatives’ release. At a meeting in Israel’s parliament this week, far-right legislators yelled at family members of the hostages and one accused them of supporting Hamas.
Other right-wing parties have said they will support the deal, giving it far more than enough support to clear a government vote.
—
The post What we know — and don’t yet — about the hostage deal to release Israelis held by Hamas appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan Officially Sanctioned by Trump Admin, Banned From Entering US

International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan speaks during an interview with Reuters in The Hague, Netherlands, Feb. 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
The United States has imposed sanctions on International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan in accordance with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, the US Treasury Department confirmed on Thursday.
Khan was sanctioned by the US after spearheading the ICC’s issuing arrest warrants for Israeli leaders over their role in the ongoing war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
The White House announced on Monday that Khan would be the first member of the ICC to be issued personal sanctions, and both the White House and Treasury Department noted on Thursday that he has been added to the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC) Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List.
Khan’s assets in the United States are now frozen, and he is banned from entering the country. The announcement came on the heels of Trump’s executive order last week to punish members of the ICC for targeting Israel.
Trump’s order lambasted the ICC for its “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.” Trump stated that the ICC “abused its power” to pursue an unsubstantiated and politically motivated criminal case against Israeli leaders.
The ICC responded to Trump with a forceful condemnation, stressing that the court produces “independent and impartial” work.
“The court stands firmly by its personnel and pledges to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world,” the ICC said.
Trump signed the executive order after Senate Democrats blocked legislation to sanction the ICC in January. The bill ultimately failed by a vote of 54-45, with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) being the sole Democrat to vote in favor of punishing the ICC. Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) criticized the bill as “poorly drafted and deeply problematic.” The House had passed the legislation.
In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and now-deceased Hamas terror leader Ibrahim al-Masri (better known as Mohammed Deif) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict. The ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for starvation in Gaza and the persecution of Palestinians — charges vehemently denied by Israel, which has provided significant humanitarian aid into the war-torn enclave throughout the war.
US and Israeli officials issued blistering condemnations of the ICC move, decrying the court for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel’s democratically elected leaders and the heads of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that launched the ongoing war in Gaza with its massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the court. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. However, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.
The post ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan Officially Sanctioned by Trump Admin, Banned From Entering US first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Boston Judge Dismisses Hate Crime Charges Against Harvard Students for Assault of Jewish Peer

Demonstrators take part in an “Emergency Rally: Stand With Palestinians Under Siege in Gaza,” amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, Oct. 14, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
A Boston Municipal Court judge has dismissed hate crime charges against two Harvard University graduate students who allegedly assaulted a Jewish student at the school in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, The Harvard Crimson reported on Wednesday.
As previously reported, an anti-Israel demonstration escalated to apparent harassment when Ibrahim Bharmal, former editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review, and Elom Tettey-Tamaklo were filmed encircling a Jewish student with a mob that screamed “Shame! Shame! Shame!” at him while he desperately attempted to free himself from the mass of bodies.
Antisemitism on Harvard’s campus skyrocketed after the Oct. 7 atrocities. Harvard stood out as a hub of pro-Hamas support for the terrorist group’s massacre of 1,200 people and kidnapping of 251 hostages in the deadliest single-day attack on Jews since the Holocaust. While Hamas’s brutal treatment of civilians — which included rape, torture, and beheading of children — shocked the world and led to international condemnation, it emboldened pro-Hamas Harvard students, and later, Harvard faculty to target Jewish and pro-Israel members of the campus community with harassment and intimidation.
Following the Oct. 2023 mobbing of a Jewish student, Bharmal and Tettey-Tamaklo were charged by the local district attorney with assault, battery, and violations of the Massachusetts Civil Rights Acts, a hate crime statute that forbids the obstruction of “free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege” — to which they pleaded not guilty.
The hate crime charge was dismissed on Monday by Judge Stephen McClenon. The students will still face one misdemeanor count of assault and battery each.
According to The Washington Free Beacon, Bharmal has been continuously rewarded with new and better opportunities since allegedly assaulting the Jewish student. Harvard neither disciplined him nor removed him from the presidency of the Harvard Law Review, a coveted post once held by former US President Barack Obama. As of last year, he was awarded a law clerkship with the Public Defender for the District of Columbia, a government funded agency which provides free legal counsel to “individuals … who are charged with committing serious criminal acts.”
Antisemitism in the US surged to catastrophic and unprecedented levels in 2023 — the year in which Bharmal and Tettey-Tamaklo’s alleged crimes took place — rising a harrowing 140 percent, according to a 2024 audit conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
The ADL recorded 8,873 incidents in 2023 — an average of 24 every day — across the US, amounting to a year unlike any experienced by the American Jewish community since the organization began tracking such data on antisemitic outrages in 1979. Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all spiked by double and triple digits, with California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Massachusetts accounting for nearly half, or 48 percent, of all that occurred.
The last quarter of the year proved the most injurious, the ADL noted, explaining that after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, 5,204 antisemitic incidents rocked the Jewish community. Across the political spectrum, from white supremacists on the far right to ostensibly left-wing Ivy League universities, antisemites emerged to express solidarity with the Hamas terroistr group, spread antisemitic tropes and blood libels, and openly call for a genocide of the Jewish people in Israel.
Such incidents occurred throughout the US. In California, an elderly Jewish man was killed when an anti-Zionist professor employed by a local community college allegedly pushed him during an argument. At Cornell University in upstate New York, a student threatened to rape and kill Jewish female students and “shoot up” the campus’ Hillel center. In a suburb outside Cleveland, Ohio, a group of vandals desecrated graves at a Jewish cemetery. At Harvard, America’s oldest and, arguably, most prestigious university, a faculty group shared an antisemitic cartoon depicting a left-hand tattooed with a Star of David dangling two men of color from a noose.
Other outrages were expressive but subtle. In November, large numbers of people traveling to attend the “March for Israel” in Washington, DC either could not show up or were forced to scramble last second and final alternative transportation because numerous bus drivers allegedly refused to transport them there. Hundreds of American Jews from Detroit, for example, were left stranded at Dulles Airport, according to multiple reports.
In another case at Yale University, a campus newspaper came under fire for removing from a student’s column what it called “unsubstantiated claims” of Hamas raping Israeli women, marking a rare occasion in which the publication openly doubted reports of sexual assault.
Harvard University recently agreed, on paper, to be part of the solution for eradicating antisemitism from its own campus.
Last month, it settled two antisemitism lawsuits, which were merged by a federal judge in November 2024, that accused school officials of refusing to discipline perpetrators of antisemitic conduct. Legal counsel for the university initially discredited the students who brought the legal actions, attempting to have their allegations thrown out of court on the grounds that they “lacked standing” and “legally cognizable claim” even as it proclaimed “the importance of the need to address antisemitism at the university,” according to court documents.
With the settlement, which came one day after the inauguration of President US Donald Trump — who has vowed to tax the endowments of universities where antisemitism is rampant — Harvard avoided a lengthy legal fight that could have been interpreted by the Jewish community as a willful refusal to acknowledge the discrimination to which Jewish students are subjected.
“Today’s settlement reflects Harvard’s enduring commitment to ensuring our Jewish students, faculty, and staff are embraced, respected, and supported,” Harvard said in a press release. “We will continue to strengthen our policies, systems, and operations to combat antisemitism and all forms of hate and ensure all members of the Harvard community have the support they need to pursue their academic, research, and professional work and feel they belong on our campus and in our classrooms.”
Per the agreement, the university will apply the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism to its non-discrimination and anti-bullying policies (NDAB), recognize the centrality of Zionism to Jewish identity, and explicitly state that targeting and individual on the basis of their Zionism constitutes a violation of school rules.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Boston Judge Dismisses Hate Crime Charges Against Harvard Students for Assault of Jewish Peer first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
US Democratic Voters Overwhelmingly Sympathize With Palestinians Over Israelis: Poll

Voters line up for the US Senate run-off election, at a polling location in Marietta, Georgia, US, January 5, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar.
Democrats in the US widely sympathize with Palestinians over Israelis, according to a new poll.
The Economist/YouGov poll, which was conducted from Feb. 9-11, found that 35 percent of Democrats indicate their sympathies “are more with” Palestinians, and only 9 percent say they are more sympathetic toward Israelis. Meanwhile, 32 percent of Democrats responded that their sympathies are “about equal” between both Palestinians and Israelis, and another 24 percent were not sure.
Notably, Democratic “sympathies” toward Israelis have dramatically declined in the past two months, coinciding with the transition of the Trump administration into the White House. On Dec. 21, according to the poll, 21 percent of Democrats sympathized more with Israelis and 25 percent sympathized more with Palestinians. On Jan. 18, two days before US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Democratic sympathy for Palestinians climbed to 27 percent. During that same timeframe, sympathies for Israelis plunged to 18 percent among Democrats.
Republicans are far more sympathetic toward Israel than Democrats are, the poll found. Sixty percent of Republicans expressed sympathy with Israelis this month, while 6 percent expressed more sympathy toward Palestinians.
In October 2023, in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 people and kidnapping of 251 hostages throughout southern Israel, 73 percent of Republicans indicated more sympathy for Israelis and 3 percent indicated more sympathy for Palestinians. As for Democrats, 34 percent had more sympathy for Israelis immediately following the Oct. 7 massacre, and 16 percent had more sympathy for the Palestinians.
Overall, although a plurality of Americans still supports Israel, sympathy for the Palestinians seems to be gaining steam. American sympathy for Israelis remained virtually unchanged from Jan. 18 to Feb. 8, dropping slightly from 32 percent to 31 percent. However, sympathy for Palestinians spiked from 15 percent to 21 percent within the same three-week span. According to the poll, American support for Palestinians has climbed to its highest level since 2017.
Trump’s recent proposal to vacate Palestinians from Gaza and build a “Riviera of the Middle East” is unpopular with the American public, according to the poll. Only 19 percent of Americans support the plan, the poll found. The policy proposal suffers from weak support among American liberals, with only 6 percent of Democrats supporting it and 74 percent opposing it. In contrast, Trump’s suggestion to relocate Palestinians into neighboring Arab states enjoys substantially greater support among Republicans, with 39 percent agreeing with Trump’s proposal and 33 percent disagreeing with it.
The growing partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become a major flashpoint in the 16 months following the Oct. 7 terror attacks. Democratic lawmakers have become increasingly critical of Israel’s approach to the Gaza war, potentially reflecting shifting opinions of the Democratic electorate regarding the Jewish state. Although Democrats have repeatedly reiterated that Israel has a right to “defend itself,” many have raised concerns over the Jewish state’s conduct in the war in Gaza, reportedly exerting private pressure on former US President Joe Biden to adopt a more adversarial stance against Israel and display more public sympathy for the Palestinians. In November, 17 Democratic senators voted to impose a partial arms embargo on Israel, sparking outrage among supporters of the Jewish state.
The post US Democratic Voters Overwhelmingly Sympathize With Palestinians Over Israelis: Poll first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login