[News] Joy and pain at outset of four-day pause and prisoner exchange

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/joy-and-pain-outset-four-day-pause-and-prisoner-exchange>
Joy and pain at outset of four-day pause and prisoner exchange

Maureen Clare Murphy
<https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy> - 25 November
2023
------------------------------

Newly released Palestinian prisoners arrive to Beitunia, west of the West
Bank city of Ramallah, in International Committee of the Red Cross vehicles
at the outset of a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, 24
November.
UPI

Friday marked the first day of a four-day pause in hostilities agreed to by
Hamas and Israel after nearly 50 days of intense attacks that have
destroyed wide swathes of Gaza and killed at least 14,800 Palestinians,
around 6,000 of them children.

Thousands more Palestinians in Gaza are reported missing
<https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-buried-rubble-airstrikes-89c0e8d0934d573d94d2fbfeba44d933>
under the rubble of destroyed buildings.

On Friday, Hamas freed 24 people held captive in Gaza since 7 October and
Israel released 39 Palestinian women and children in the first stage
<https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-11-24-2023-172256dd593189f7b37f7c62f4739c6b>
of a prisoner swap that will be implemented over the next few days.

“Under the deal, Hamas is to release at least 50 hostages, and Israel 150
Palestinian prisoners over the four days,” the AP news agency reported
<https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-11-24-2023-172256dd593189f7b37f7c62f4739c6b>
.

“Both sides were starting with women and children. Israel said the four-day
truce can be extended an extra day for every additional 10 hostages freed.”

Israel is currently holding
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/24/who-were-the-palestinian-prisoners-israel-released-on-friday>
more than 8,000 Palestinians in its prisons and detention centers,
including some 2,200 administrative detainees held without charge or trial.
Around 3,000 Palestinans, including 145 children, 95 women and 37
journalists, have been arrested by Israel since 7 October.

An estimated 240 people captured in Israel on 7 October are being held in
Gaza. Thirteen Israeli women and children and 10 Thai farmworkers and a
citizen of the Philippines were also released on Friday.

The Thai workers “were released in a separate deal from the ceasefire that
had not been previously reported,” according to Reuters.
Despite the agreement to pause hostilities, Israeli forces shot and killed
two Palestinians and injured others who were attempting to return to the
north of Gaza from the south. AP reported
<https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-11-24-2023-f0a8acd3926fda71bd1a0c3750e3b695>
that the Israeli military had “dropped leaflets on southern Gaza saying
that returning to northern Gaza is prohibited and dangerous.”

The Israeli government line is that people attempting to return north are
being forced by Hamas to do so.
That narrative has been adapted by some media outlets, including *Forbes*,
which framed
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/erictegler/2023/11/24/with-a-temporary-truce-hamas-new-tactic-is-sending-gazans-north/>
displaced Palestinians attempting to return to their homes in Gaza City and
the north as a “tactic” devised by Hamas to disrupt Israel’s military
campaign.

The reality is that people are quitting the often overcrowded and squalid
shelters in which they have been staying and voluntarily returning to their
homes.

Al Jazeera published video showing thousands of people streaming back to
northern Gaza on Friday, despite Israeli threats:
The AP news agency said that “Israel’s northern border with Lebanon was
also quiet on Friday,” one day after Hizballah, which is not party to the
agreement to pause hostilities, “carried out the highest number of attacks
in one day since fighting there began” on 8 October. Cooking gas enters Gaza

International humanitarian agencies sought to take advantage of the
four-day pause to ramp up aid to Gaza, which is reeling from humanitarian
catastrophe after Israel cut off deliveries of water, electricity, fuel,
food and medical supplies to the territory at the outset of its offensive.

Israel’s military attacks have rendered several hospitals in the northern
half of Gaza, including al-Shifa, the largest health facility in the
territory, inoperable. Israeli forces withdrew
<https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-49>
from both the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza and al-Shifa in Gaza
City on Friday, but not before destroying generators and other equipment
and infrastructure.

Nearly 80 percent
<https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-49>
of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, most of whom are already refugees, have
been displaced in the past seven weeks, and 46,000 housing units in the
territory have been destroyed.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said
<https://www.ochaopt.org/content/more-aid-delivered-gaza-first-day-humanitarian-pause>
that the world body “was able to scale up the delivery of humanitarian
assistance into and across Gaza” on the first day of the “humanitarian
pause.”

The UN office said that “200 trucks were dispatched from Nitzana,” where
aid destined to Gaza is undergoing Israeli military inspection, “to the
Rafah crossing” on the border with Egypt.

Prior to 7 October, most aid entered Gaza via Israel and the Karem Abu
Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing, but that checkpoint has been closed by
Israel since then.

Aid agencies have pleaded for Karem Abu Salem to be opened to facilitate an
increase of deliveries to Gaza. Rafah crossing was built for the movement
of people rather than goods, and aid groups say
<https://gisha.org/en/urgent-need-for-humanitarian-access-to-gaza-via-kerem-shalom/>
that bringing aid via Egypt’s Sinai, as well as Israeli inspections at
Nitzana crossing, are adding to their time and expenses.

The director of the human rights group Doctors of the World told
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-23/ty-article/.premium/too-little-too-slow-experts-say-israel-hamas-pause-is-humanitarian-band-aid-for-gaza/0000018b-f973-d783-a3df-f97bb4260000>
the Tel Aviv daily *Haaretz* that the four-day pause was “a joke,” calling
it “humanitarian-washing.”

UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, offloaded 137 trucks of goods
on Friday, “making it the biggest humanitarian convoy received since 7
October,” according to OCHA, which added that “129,000 liters of fuel and
four trucks of gas also crossed into Gaza.”

OCHA said
<https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-49>
that it was the first transfer of cooking gas to Gaza since 7 October.

Meanwhile, “21 critical patients were evacuated in a large-scale medical
operation from the north of Gaza,” OCHA said, and “hundreds of thousands of
people were assisted with food, water, medical supplies and other essential
humanitarian items.”

Palestinians in Gaza used the beginning of the four-day pause to recover
and bury the dead recovered from under the rubble of destroyed buildings
and those killed along the north-south arterial along which Israel forcibly
transferred people in northern Gaza to the south:
Many attempted to return to or check on their homes, finding much of what
they knew and loved to now be destroyed. Many people received news of
friends, family members and colleagues killed in Gaza, including writer
Mohammed Hamo, who was a contributor
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/gaza-photographer-captured-and-tortured-israel/38371>
to The Electronic Intifada. Release of Israeli and Thai captives

The Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, released a video showing the
transfer of detainees to the International Committee of the Red Cross on
Friday:
The video shows men who appear to be the released Thai nationals being
assisted out of a van by a masked Qassam member in military uniform before
they are escorted by people wearing ICRC vests.

The footage shows a young boy wearing a Spiderman baseball cap being picked
up and loaded into an ICRC vehicle by a Qassam member and an older woman
being carried in the arms of a Qassam member.

The video, published without audio, depicts a crowd of Palestinians at the
scene, many of whom are holding up their phones to document the event, some
of them making the V for victory signs with their hands as the captives are
transferred to the ICRC.

Another video showing the departure of the released captives shows one of
them waving farewell to the crowd of Palestinians that had gathered as the
ICRC convoy made its way to Rafah crossing with Egypt:
Israel’s Channel 12 said
<https://www.mako.co.il/news-israel/2023_q4/Article-288daa79472fb81027.htm>
that upon completing a medical examination, the released captives will be
isolated at hospitals and the adults will undergo a security investigation
by Shin Bet personnel.

The network added that the released captives will not be banned from giving
media interviews but “they are expected to receive close supervision, and
they will be instructed on what is true tell the media and what is not.”
After two older Israeli women were released by Hamas last month, and one of
them described being treated well by “friendly” captors, some in Israel
viewed this as “a major Israeli misstep and a propaganda victory for
Hamas,” as *The Times of Israel* lamented
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-furious-elderly-captive-spoke-humane-treatment-hamas>.


Meanwhile in Gaza, the pause in Israel’s incessant bombardment gave
surviving Palestinians journalists a chance for a joyful reunion with their
families and to take a rest after working nonstop and in perilous
conditions:
Palestinian prisoners released on Friday were also received by their
families with tears of joy: The Palestinian women released on Friday
received a hero’s welcome by an overjoyed crowd as they took their first
steps of freedom: Israel seemingly sought to avoid such scenes, with a
17-year-old freed detainee telling reporters that he was told that Israel
would arrest him again if he was given a celebratory reception: US
President Joe Biden – who is being sued by Palestinians
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/palestinians-sue-biden-stop-gaza-genocide>
for failing to prevent the genocide unfolding in Gaza, and for his
complicity in genocide – said that the beginning of the four-day pause and
the release of 13 Israeli captives “was only a start, but so far it’s gone
well.”

Biden made no acknowledgement of the Palestinians released on Friday,
including children held without charge or trial.

He made several disparaging remarks about Hamas and made no mention of
Israel’s carpet bombing of Gaza and the unprecedented death toll among
Palestinians.

In response to a reporter’s question, Biden said he encouraged Netanyahu to
“focus on trying to reduce the number of casualties while he is attempting
to eliminate Hamas, which is a legitimate objective.”

Biden’s response is an indication that his administration is giving Israel
plenty of runway to continue the genocide unfolding in Gaza and potentially
force a mass expulsion of Palestinians from the territory, as sought by
many in the government and political establishment.

“I don’t know how long it will take,” Biden said of the war. “My
expectation and hope is that as we move forward, the rest of the Arab world
and the region is also putting pressure on all sides to slow this down, to
bring this to an end as quickly as we can.”

In response to a question about pressure within the Democratic party to
condition aid to Israel, Biden said, “I think that’s a worthwhile thought,
but I don’t think if I started off with that, we’d have gotten to where we
are today.”

Biden claimed on Friday that “Hamas doesn’t give a damn” about the innocent
Palestinians “who are suffering greatly because of this war.” He emphasized
a two-state solution and indicated that the US would press on with
brokering normalization deals between Israel and despotic Arab states.

A crowd in Ramallah, the seat of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority
in the West Bank, had a very different message on Friday.

A crowd receiving some of the released prisoners chanted in support of Abu
Obeida, the spokesperson for the armed wing of Hamas, and its head Muhammad
Deif, thanking the resistance in Gaza for securing their freedom:
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