Gaza release deal has to happen now, hostage’s mother says

Israel launched a campaign in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response to the attack on southern Israel last October, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 39,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Mr Netanyahu has been resisting pressure to accept a proposed ceasefire deal that would allow an exchange of the remaining 116 hostages, 44 of whom are believed to be dead, for Palestinian prisoners.

Israel’s security establishment has been signalling that an agreement is possible since Hamas recently dropped its demand for an upfront guarantee of a permanent ceasefire.

According to Israeli media reports and BBC sources close to the indirect talks, the negotiations have since bogged down again on Israeli demands that soldiers maintain supervision of corridors along the Egyptian border and in the centre of Gaza, in particular on Mr Netanyahu’s insistence for a mechanism to prevent armed fighters from returning to the northern part of the strip.

“Now is the money time,” Col Lior Lotan, a close adviser to Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, told Israel’s Channel 12 News on Friday.

“The terms of the deal includes risks that the defence establishment can tolerate… All the heads of the security services say this. To counter them with a hypothetical, as if it were possible to get more through more military pressure, would be wrong.”