Hamas-Israel Ceasefire Nearing

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

GAZA CITY/JERUSALEM (Worthy News) – A ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel was nearing early Tuesday, ahead of the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the 47th U.S. President, several officials confirm.

The officials said that the first stage of the potential deal would see Hamas release 33 “humanitarian” hostages — children, women, female soldiers, the elderly, and the sick. Israel believes most of the 33 are alive, but that some are dead, the officials said. They noted that Jerusalem has not yet received any confirmation of their status.

Trump had warned Hamas that “all hell will break out” if the group, designated as a terrorist organization, won’t release the remaining hostages.

Joe Biden said his administration is on the brink of sealing a ceasefire deal in a speech in Washington meant to showcase his foreign policy achievements. He explained that the contours of the agreement matched a “proposal that I laid out in detail months ago.”

The progress has also been linked by experts to the fall of “the Iranian-led Axis in the Middle East,” with the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria and the defeat of Hezbollah in Lebanon, which led to more pressure on Hamas.

The U.S. national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said there was a “distinct possibility” the deal could be reached before Joe Biden left office, as the “pressure is building for Hamas”.

“We are close to a deal, and it can get done this week. I am not making a promise or prediction, but it is there for the taking, and we are going to work to make it happen,” Sullivan said at a briefing at the White House on Monday.

GOOD CHANCE

“I think there’s a good chance we can close this,” he added.

The remarks came after Gideon Saar, Israel’s foreign minister, revealed progress in talks for a Gaza ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages. However he too made clear it came amid intensifying indirect negotiations in Qatar attended by Trump’s Middle East envoy.

Speaking at a joint press conference with his Danish counterpart, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Saar said Israel was working hard to reach a deal.

U.S. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance agreed with that assessment, saying on Sunday that the hostage-deal talks between Israel and Hamas are progressing because “the Gaza terrorist organization is terrified” by Trump’s warnings.

Speaking on U.S. broadcaster Fox News, Vance explained what Trump’s threats could mean in practice.

“It means enabling the Israelis to knock out the last couple of battalions of Hamas and their leadership. It means very aggressive sanctions and financial penalties on those supporting terrorist organizations in the Middle East. It means actually doing the job of American leadership,” Vance added. Of Trump’s “Hell will break out” comments at the end of December.

“We’re hopeful there’s a deal that’s struck toward the very end of the Biden administration, maybe the last day or two,” Vance stressed. “But regardless of when that deal is struck, it will be because people are terrified that there are going to be consequences for Hamas.”

SECURITY THREATENED?

Yet Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, decried the current emerging deal proposed by Biden as a “catastrophe for the national security of the state of Israel.”

“We will not be part of a surrender deal that would include releasing terrorist hostages, stopping the war and dissolving its achievements that were bought with much blood, and abandoning many hostages,” Smotrich wrote on social media platform X.

“This is the time to continue with all our might, to occupy and cleanse the entire Strip, to finally take control of humanitarian aid from Hamas, and to open the gates of hell on Gaza until Hamas surrenders completely and all the hostages are returned.”

Hamas and its allies still hold 94 hostages taken from Israel during the attacks of October 7, 2023, at least 34 of whom are dead, and four hostages were captured earlier, according to the Israeli government.

The Hamas-backed health ministry says more than 46,000 Palestinians were killed by Israeli military operations in Gaza since October 7, 2023, but those figures have been complex to verify independently. Israel has suggested that about half of those killed were Hamas fighters using civilians as human shields.

The war broke out after Hamas killed about 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped about 250 others on October 7, 2023, in what Israeli officials called the worst atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust, also known as the Shoah.

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