After the Israeli army recovered the our bodies of six hostages who had been held for nearly a yr by Hamas in Gaza, the daddy of an Israeli-American nonetheless in captivity reiterated requires a conclusion to cease-fire negotiations which have stalled.
Jonathan Dekel-Chen mentioned Sunday on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that he believes Israel’s authorities, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is navigating the continuing conflict and the cease-fire talks with private political pursuits in thoughts, relatively than in pursuit of the remaining hostages’ freedom. His feedback echoed the views of many Israelis who’ve criticized Netanyahu and his cupboard because the preventing has drawn on, though Dekel-Chen acknowledged the challenges embedded in negotiations and likened the duty of settling phrases with Hamas to “coping with Devil.”
“Provided that we’re coping with Devil, I imply, that is kind of the launching level for any dialogue, Israelis at massive, and myself included, have been extraordinarily crucial of the Israeli authorities for not negotiating in good religion now, for a lot of, many months,” he mentioned. “There is no such thing as a rationalization, an affordable reason our authorities is refusing to deeply have interaction in these negotiations and full them, when our whole senior army institution and intelligence group has been saying publicly and overtly for weeks and months that the time has come to finish the preventing in Gaza, get our hostages house, as many alive as doable.”
The Israel Protection Forces mentioned Early Sunday that the our bodies of six being held hostage, together with Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, had been present in Gaza. There are nonetheless eight Americans believed to be hostages, together with Dekel-Chen’s son, Sagui. Sagui is the daddy of three daughters, together with one born whereas he has been in captivity.
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“The one factor that we all know for certain about Sagui is that, as of late November, early December, we all know that he was alive, wounded, however alive,” Dekel-Chen mentioned Sunday.
When Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing over 1,000, in addition they kidnapped 250 hostages and took them into the Gaza Strip, the place many have been held in the course of the Israeli army siege that ensued. Round 100 of the hostages, primarily ladies and kids, had been returned as a part of a weeklong cease-fire deal in November that additionally noticed a pause within the bombardment and the discharge of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
Few hostages have been freed since then. Earlier than the army introduced the newest discovery of our bodies, Israel mentioned it believed 101 hostages remained in Gaza and about one-third had been lifeless. The our bodies of six different hostages had been recovered by Israeli troops final month in southern Gaza. Eight have been rescued by Israeli forces, with the newest discovered on Tuesday.
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Earlier operations by the Israeli army to free hostages being held there have left scores of Palestinians lifeless. Hamas has mentioned some hostages had been killed in Israeli airstrikes and in failed rescue makes an attempt, whereas the IDF mentioned that their troops mistakenly killed three Israelis who had escaped captivity a number of months into the conflict. Within the wake of the invention of six our bodies of these being held hostage by Hamas, a discussion board of hostage households known as for a mass protest on Sunday — a “full halt of the nation” — to demand a cease-fire and the hostages’ launch.
Regardless of their calls, Netanyahu has continued to forge forward with the conflict effort, which he says goals to remove Hamas solely.
“I feel the overwhelming majority of Israelis now have come to imagine, by his actions, not his phrases, however by his actions, that he is been pushed primarily by a need to retain energy with a slender, very radical messianic coalition within the Israeli authorities,” Dekel-Chen mentioned Sunday about Netanyahu. “And he has made decisions to pursue this fantasy of whole victory over Hamas, a terrorist group, and little question, however this concept of whole victory is a messianic one from his coalition companions, and never life like. And he is most well-liked that, at the very least so far, over the nicely being of all of the hostages.”
Hamas has supplied to launch the hostages in alternate for an finish to the conflict, through which the Hamas-run Palestinian Well being Ministry has mentioned greater than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, in addition to the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the discharge of extra Palestinian prisoners, a few of whom are recognized militants.
Netanyahu on Saturday repeated claims that Hamas has stalled the cease-fire negotiations, saying “whoever murders hostages would not desire a deal” and vowing to carry Hamas accountable for killing the prisoners in “chilly blood.”
