Nobel Call May 2024

April 26, 2024. 18 Countries Call for Common Sense.

Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States :

https://www.timesofisrael.com/18-countries-demand-hostage-release-us-theres-a-deal-on-the-table-hamas-rejected-it/

“We call for the immediate release of all hostages held by Hamas in Gaza for over 200 days. They include our own citizens. The fate of the hostages and the civilian population in Gaza, who are protected under international law, is of international concern,”

“We emphasize that the deal on the table to release the hostages would bring an immediate and prolonged ceasefire in Gaza, that would facilitate a surge of additional necessary humanitarian assistance to be delivered throughout Gaza and lead to the credible end of hostilities. 

“Gazans would be able to return to their homes and their lands with preparations beforehand to ensure shelter and humanitarian provisions,”

“We strongly support the ongoing mediation efforts in order to bring our people home. We reiterate our call on Hamas to release the hostages and let us end this crisis so that collectively we can focus our efforts on bringing peace and stability to the region,” 

April 30, 2024. Back to Sderot, Nir Oz, and then Tel Aviv. Back in Nablus. Up to Gerizim.

Despair and tension rising. Things not moving. No support for our latest stand. See above April 10.

Read Issacharoff today in YNet News, https://www.ynetnews.com/article/b1jesirw0

The war came to a halt somewhere around January, only someone forgot to put a notice for the public. There haven’t been any substantial ground operations since the maneuvering into Khan Younis that began in December 2023.

Release the hostages / Stop the war : The hen and the egg. 

 

May 1, 2024. Back in Ramallah. The Jerusalem and Nablus Call for the Release of all Hostages.

Our 184-word call for the release of hostages and a durable cessation of the hostilities has fallen on deaf ears.

There is a high level of tension and denial on the Palestinian side - denial of the massacres of October 7. The protests on American campuses, in France and Germany, against Israel, have blurred the global picture, and turned it into a binary, exclusive narrative. Angst is higher than it was in Nir Oz and the devastated kibbutzim in March. In Rafah the displaced live in appalling conditions.

Aryeh Zalmanovich, one of the founders of Nir Oz, the oldest hostage, died in captivity in Gaza in December. He died out of starvation. The guts disease he had demanded special food and drugs, which he did not get. He could not eat. He was a farmer, "all his life a man of the earth and a man of books".

 

Now Amiram Cooper, 85, from Nir Oz too, is the oldest hostage. His glasses were shattered when he was captured, and he cannot see without them. His wife's shoulder was broken then. I could meet with her and her son Rotem.

They don't know whether he is still alive. Their neighbour Chaim Peri turned 80 last month, in captivity. Like Yoram Metzger. For them time is (of) the essence, more than ever. Amiram, Chaim, and Yoram in December.

For their sake we have reduced the Jerusalem and Nablus Call to the core 100 words :

 

Halas ! Khlass ! Hebrew like Arabic : ENOUGH !

Enough torture for the hostages and their families !

Enough torture for the displaced, North and South, Israelis and Palestinians !

Let them all go home now, to heal the wounds.

Eighteen countries call for the immediate release of all the hostages held in Gaza, starting with the women, the wounded, the elderly, the sick.

The fate of the hostages and the civilian population in Gaza has become one.

With the eighteen we whole-heartedly support the ongoing negotiations.

"We're talking about people, and we all need to act, right now, to end this story."*

* one of the hostages' father's plea

 

May 2, Erez reopens to aid trucks. Blinken at Erez and Nir Oz

 

the US “cannot and will not support a major military operation in Rafah absent an effective plan to make sure that civilians are not harmed, and we’ve not seen such a plan.”

 

“At the same time, there are other ways — and in our judgment, better ways — of dealing with the real ongoing challenge of Hamas that does not require a major military operation” in Rafah, Blinken said.

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-opens-erez-crossing-to-gaza-aid-for-first-time-as-blinken-tours-border/

1,000 US service members, mostly from the Army and Navy involved in building aid pier to Gaza by now half way complete

 

 May 6, 2024. Clock is ticking. The  hostages vs Rafah op.

 

"They are waving Rafah around as if it's the tool that will end the war and bring absolute victory - let's be honest, it won't end the war. If we don't come in with a plan for the day after Hamas is completely eliminated, nothing will change, even after Rafah." 

https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-799358

 Avi Issacharoff, The Jerusalem Post, May 5, 2024

 

How long can people in their eighties, with serious health issues, survive in such conditions as remaining prisoners in some dark, damp tunnels, with little air to breathe ?

 

May 7, 2024. On the threshold of a deal.

 

in the first stage, which will last 40 days, there will be a temporary cease-fire between the parties and the IDF will withdraw eastward from densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip, to an area close to the Israeli border. In addition, it was reported, there will be a suspension of flights over the Gaza Strip for 8 hours a day, and 10 hours on hostage release days. There will also be an increase in the introduction of humanitarian aid and fuel into the Gaza Strip.

 

in the first phase Hamas will release three hostages on the first day of the agreement, and then three hostages every three days, until the 33rd day. By the seventh day (at most), it was reported, Hamas will submit a list of all the remaining hostages from specific categories (women, children, elderly and sick), provided that they are released on the 34th day. With the agreement to cease military operations, the truce will be extended by several days depending on the number of hostages remaining (an additional day for each hostage to be released). In exchange, Israel will release an identical and agreed upon number of Palestinian prisoners according to the lists that will be agreed upon. 

 

As for the return of the displaced persons to their homes, the proposal states that "on the seventh day (after the release of all the women), Israeli forces will withdraw from Al-Rashid Street eastward along Salah al-Din Street, in a way that allows the entry of humanitarian aid, the beginning of the return of unarmed displaced citizens to their areas of residence and freedom of movement of the civilian population in all areas of the Strip. On the 22nd day, after the release of two-thirds of the hostages according to the version of the published proposal, "Israeli forces will withdraw from the center of the Gaza Strip (mainly from the Netzerarim Corridor and Kuwait Square), east of the Salah al-Din road, to an area near the border, where displaced citizens may return to their places of residence in the northern Gaza Strip. 

 

"Facilitating the entry of intensive and appropriate amounts of humanitarian aid, aid materials and fuel (500 trucks, of which 50 are fuel trucks, with 250 arriving in the northern Gaza Strip), including the fuel needed to operate power stations, and the equipment needed for clearing rubble and reconstruction of hospitals, health centers and bakeries in all areas of the Gaza Strip." This section, according to the report, will continue throughout all stages of the agreement. 

 

In the second phase, which will last 42 days, the necessary arrangements will be completed to restore "sustainable peace" in the Gaza Strip, and the announcement of its entry into force before the beginning of a prisoner exchange between the parties - when Israel will receive all the surviving male hostages (civilians and soldiers over the age of 19 which will be all the remaining hostages), in exchange for an agreed number of Palestinian prisoners and also a "full withdrawal" of the IDF from the Gaza Strip. 

 

In the third phase, which will also last 42 days, the bodies of the Israelis in the Strip will be exchanged for the bodies of Palestinian terrorists after identification. In addition, a five-year reconstruction plan for the Strip will begin, which will include the construction of houses, civil facilities and infrastructure. 

Timeline of Recent Twists and Turns in Gaza Cease-fire Talks

 

May 8, 2024. A message from Rafah.

"Displaced in a different place. Still in Rafah.

 

Sad week and days. One of my sisters passed away, and another lost two of her children. Killed in Rafah, and her third child is seriously wounded."