Is Israel and Hamas Moving Toward Hostages? The Be’eri family’s fear grows as Israel moves closer to the hostage deal
With Israel and Hamas signaling that they were working on a cease-fire to free 50 hostages, some of the families of those who had been kidnapped were wrestling with conflicting feelings: a growing expectation that their loved ones would return, but also a gnawing fear that the deal might fall apart.
“If we’ve been on a roller coaster, now we’re going up,” said Gili Roman, whose sister Yarden Roman was taken hostage from Be’eri, a Gaza border kibbutz, during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7. The fear is that the higher we go, the more we will fall. There is a lot of anxiety.
In a statement on Telegram, Hamas announced that it had agreed to a four-day cease fire that will allow for 50 hostages to be swapped for 150 Palestinian prisoners.
Yifat Zailer said that her hope for the safe return of Ms. Bibas and her husband, Yarden, with their two red-haired children, were at the forefront of her anxiety.
“I’m trying to take care not to be happy too quickly,” Ms. Zailer said on Tuesday. It is possible that it will collapse tomorrow. We could see the days pass when the hostages come back and the kids aren’t with their mom.
Kfir, less than a year old, is one of the youngest Israelis abducted by Hamas-led gunmen on Oct. 7. His family in Israel still does not know where he and his brother are being held, whether they are with their parents — or even if they are still alive, Ms. Zailer said.
But even if Ms. Bibas, Kfir and Ariel return home as part of the emerging hostage deal — far from guaranteed — Yarden, her husband, is likely to stay behind.
Yagil appeared in a video released on Nov. 9 by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an armed group based in Gaza that invaded Israeli towns on Oct. 7 alongside Hamas. He told Israel to bring him home in the video. Hostages often appear in such videos under duress and their statements are likely to have been coerced.
Israelis in Israel cite threats, firings and discrimination after Oct. 7: Ms. Phillips-Bahat says the Israeli counterterrorism law is too broad and ambiguous
Ms.Phillips-Bahat does not know if her cousins will come home in a hostage exchange, but she and her family are still hopeful.
On the banners, Mor and her friends were painting slogans — in Arabic and Hebrew — calling for Palestinians and Jewish Israelis to join hands and support each other in this war.
They will start to accuse you of being suspicious if you don’t open your mouth. Zoabi says. Shut your mouth and it is not enough. You should express that you agree with them, that you identify with them.”
Zoabi is a prominent Israeli dissident who’s been detained for protesting before. But she says this time was different. She says the Israeli police waved a flag while booking her.
Under the amendment added to Israel’s counterterrorism law, Palestinians are being arrested for “consumption of terrorist materials“, meaning they read pro-Hamas content online. The law has been criticized by rights groups for being too broad and ambiguous.
A 48-Year-Old Palestinian Villager in Tel Aviv Was Amputated During a 1948 War Over Israel’s Founding
We did not have enough time to hold the banners. We were on our way. She told of how police didn’t allow them to stand in the middle of Nazareth because they weren’t carrying banners.
She said that people are fired from their jobs when they make a phone call. “But they’re also being arrested, and indictments are being submitted.”
TEL AVIV, Israel — Two years ago, Samah Abou Shhadeh graduated from college and landed a coveted job as an economist at an Israeli financial services company in a skyscraper in downtown Tel Aviv.
Before Oct. 7, Abou Shhadeh marveled at how she could live in Tel Aviv’s old Arab quarter Jaffa and commute across town to the city’s mostly Jewish financial district. She remembers that she was proud to be a part of both worlds.
I have seen people doing terrible things to each other over the last 50 years. But this episode that began with the barbaric Hamas attack on Israelis, including women, little kids and soldiers in communities alongside Gaza, and the Israeli retaliation against Hamas fighters embedded in Gaza that has also killed, wounded and displaced so many thousands of Palestinian civilians — from newborns to the elderly — is surely the worst since the 1947 U.N. partition days.
She shared a video from Tantura on social media. It’s about a massacre in one Palestinian village during the 1948 war over Israel’s founding. She posted the footage, without any commentary of her own. She had her own account that this was on.
Her manager phoned her the next day. Colleagues were offended. He asked her to take the clip off. Abou Shhadeh refused — and a letter from human resources followed.
Palestine’s First Amendment: Human Rights Lawyers Are Calling the Israelis “Hamiltonians” for Their Political Persequences
About 20% of Israelis identify as Arab or Palestinian. Most are descendants of the people who were not killed, expelled, or forced to flee when Israel was created.
“There’s a lot of discrimination. People are starting to tell on other people if they’re criticizing the war or if they’re even sympathizing with the pain of the Palestinians in Gaza,” says Orly Mor, a Jewish dual American-Israeli citizen and member of the group.
Three doctors from Palestine in Israel wrote an open letter to the Israeli government accusing their Jewish counterparts in the medical system of being hypocritical, racist and militarism.
In the HR letter outlining her dismissal, which Abou Shhahdeh showed to NPR, the company says it supports freedom of expression, but that during wartime, more sensitivity is expected from employees. It states that Abou Shhadeh crossed a line.
“This is all absurd. Sawsan Zaher is a human rights lawyer based in Haifa, Israel. “We are talking about a massive wave of political persecution against Arab citizens inside of Israel.”
Zaher, who does not know or represent Abou Shhadeh, says she is getting more and more inquires from the Arabs about labor abuses inside Israel.
Source: Palestinians in Israel cite threats, firings and discrimination after Oct. 7
A Muslim Mom’s Voice: Telling the Israelis that Gaza’s Pain is Not Forbidden by the Hamas Terrorism
She worries that taking legal action against her former employer might hurt her prospects for a new job — which she desperately needs. She and her fiancée have a mortgage. They were supposed to get married this month, but the wedding is delayed because of the war.
I arrived in Tel Aviv and met with the most brave Israeli politician today, Mansour Abbas. The United Arab List party is headed by Abbas, who is a Palestinian Arab citizen of Israel and a member of the parliament. Abbas’s voice is even more vital now because he did not respond to the Hamas terrorism with silence. Abbas understands that while it’s right to be outraged at the pain Israel is inflicting on Gaza’s civilians, reserving all of your outrage for Gaza’s pain creates suspicion among Jews in Israel and worldwide, who notice when not a word is uttered about the Hamas atrocities that triggered this war.
The people don’t care about the Jewish mom in Jerusalem who told me that she got a gun license so she could protect her kids from Hamas, or the Arab teacher who rushed her children to the school bomb shelter. They didn’t notice that the Israeli Arab shop owner from Taibe gave 50 bikes to Jewish children who survived the Hamas attack on their border communities, then they torched his shop.
But those on all sides who read this column know that I am not one for keeping score. My focus is to get out of this horror show before everyone is blind and toothless.
Thomas Hobbes and Walter Mondale: The Crucial Challenge of the Israeli Arab Diagnosis of the Hamas Attack in the Continuum
I want you to spare a few moments with me this Thanksgiving week, so that I can reflect on some of the amazing acts of rescue committed by these people. They will give you more faith in humanity than the headlines around this story would ever suggest.
To put it another way, a friend once described my worldview as a cross between Thomas Hobbes and Walter Mondale. For several days on my trip, I let out my inner Mondale to chase some rays of hope shooting through the darkness.
No one can accept what happened on that day according to Abbas. And we cannot condemn it and say ‘but’ — that word ‘but’ has become immoral.” (Recent polls show overwhelming Israeli Arab condemnation of the Hamas attack.)
Abbas said that being an Israeli Arab is one of the hardest things to do. The pain of being Arab can be felt once as an Arab and once as an Israeli.