GNITN - Special Edition

Israel At War – Day 119

Hostage Deal At 50%

Hamas Wants Barghouti

In hostage release negotiations if one side is through with negotiating they usually make an ask they know won’t be accepted. In the current back and forth between Israel and Hamas, the terrorists added wanting two men who they know Israel won’t release. We read about them and more in an article from i24news.tv:

Hamas officials said Friday that the group is studying a proposed ceasefire deal that would include prolonged pauses in fighting in Gaza and swaps of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, but at the same time appeared to rule out some of its key components.

Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh held a phone call with Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ziad Nakhaleh to discuss the (offer), the Gaza-ruling terror group announced. According to a statement from Haniyeh’s office, the two agreed any deal with Israel for the release of hostages must be accompanied by a complete halt to the fighting, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, ending the blockade, reconstruction of the Strip and the freeing of Palestinian security prisoners.

Such steep demands would seem to be non-starters for Israel.

I mentioned these points in my last report and as I mentioned, they know Israel isn’t going to bend on those points at all. Nor will they agree to these additional demands:

Meanwhile Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official in Beirut, also said the group remains committed to its initial demands for a permanent ceasefire that would end the war. Hamdan also said the group seeks the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners being held for acts related to the conflict with Israel, including those serving life sentences.

And then, as if to just make demands that go from absurd to completely ridiculous they added this:

He mentioned two by name, including Marwan Barghouti, a popular Palestinian leader seen as a unifying figure. Barghouti was arrested by Israel in 2002 and is serving five life terms for planning three terror attacks that killed five Israelis during the Second Intifada.

In addition to Barghouti, Hamdan named Ahmad Saadat, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group, as well as Hamas prisoners and those from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization. Saadat is serving a 30-year sentence for his role in the 2001 assassination of Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Ze’evi.

Pointing Fingers

As we read further in this article we can quickly realize how far apart both sides are:

The insistence on large-scale prisoner releases and an end to the fighting in Gaza put the group at odds with the multi-stage proposal that officials from Egypt, Israel, Qatar and the United States put forth this week. The proposal does not include a permanent ceasefire.

Just to make it clear, at no point will Israel completely stop this war until Hamas is obliterated. However, the Hamas spokesman went on to say this:

“There is no way that this will be acceptable by the resistance,” Hamdan told Lebanon’s LBC TV on Friday, referring to proposed successive pauses in fighting.

“We have tried temporary truces and it turned out that the Israelis don’t respect these truces but always violate them,” Hamdan said, in an apparent reference to a weeklong truce in November that ended after Hamas failed to provide a new list of hostages for release that met previously agreed criteria and fired rockets at Israel. Hamas claimed various violations by Israel throughout that truce, though these were reportedly dismissed by mediators Qatar and Egypt.

Israelis will support a deal that releases all the hostages, but will not abide leaving Hamas in power in Gaza as part of it:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed on Wednesday that Israel will not agree to a deal “at any cost,” and that it will not end the war, pull the IDF out of the Gaza Strip or “release thousands of terrorists.”

What we do know is that the back and forth of proposals will continue, however one top-ranking Israeli has his doubts and he’s not alone:

A senior Israeli official told NBC News Friday that it was unclear that a deal would come to fruition.

“I don’t think it’s more than 50/50 it will materialize,” the unnamed senior official said.

Unnamed ministers also told Channel 12 news that a deal was far from certain.

Hezbollah On Notice

In remarks made while making stops in northern Israel, Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant made it clear that any ceasefire in fighting against Hamas will not apply to Hezbollah as we read in a report from The Times Of Israel:

Touring the north, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warns that a pause in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza will not apply to the ongoing hostilities with Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group.

“If Hezbollah thinks that when there is a ceasefire in the south it will hold fire and we’ll stop, it’s making a big mistake,” Gallant says after meeting troops from the IDF’s Alpine Unit on Mount Hermon, according to a statement from his office.

Gallant went on to say that the IDF in the north is not halting things against Hezbollah until it’s safe for Israelis to go back to their homes and businesses:

He adds: “I say here explicitly: Until we reach a situation in which it’s possible to restore security for residents of the north, we will not stop. (When we) reach this through a [diplomatic] arrangement or military means, we can be calm.”

Initially people resisted the notion of fighting on the northern front against Hezbollah for fear it would expand the war to a more regional fight, but all that talk should be tabled until the terrorists in southern Lebanon and supported by terrorists in Syria stop attacking. I don’t see them doing that now and only a major military counteroffensive will stop them.

Moving On

In a report from CBN.com we hear from Gallant again and it is an update on how the fighting in Khan Younis is going:

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says the Israel Defense Forces reached a major military milestone: the defeat of Hamas in Khan Younis, the second largest city in the Gaza Strip, and home to many in the Hamas top leadership.

Now, Gallant says the IDF is moving on to their next targets.

He declared, “The (Hamas) Khan Younis Brigade boasted that it would stand strong against the IDF. Today it is dismantled. And I’m telling you that we are completing the mission in Khan Younis, and we will also reach Rafah (at the Egyptian border) and we will eliminate anyone who’s there, who is a terrorist, who is trying to attack us.”

We get specific details on the fighting in Khan Younis from an article from i24news.tv:

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has announced the continuation of its efforts to dismantle Hamas in the Gaza Strip, with significant progress reported in western Khan Yunis, according to a statement from the IDF.

Over the past day, IDF ground forces, in coordination with the Israeli Air Force (IAF), have actively targeted terrorists and destroyed infrastructure associated with terrorist activities in the Gaza Strip. Israeli Naval troops also played a role by striking terror targets along the Gaza Strip coastline, supporting the ground operations.

Terrorists are not faring well in these offensives:

In the ongoing operation in western Khan Yunis, more than 20 terrorists were reportedly killed, primarily in close-quarters combat situations. The IDF ground troops conducted targeted raids on various terror sites and military compounds, leading to the discovery of AK-47 rifles, grenades, explosive devices, military equipment, and ammunition.

A separate incident in western Khan Yunis involved IDF troops directing an aircraft to strike military compounds housing terrorists. Following the airstrike, an armed terrorist cell launched anti-tank missiles at the troops, prompting a coordinated response with the IAF to thwart the cell. Multiple armed terrorists were subsequently neutralized, and the IDF seized RPG launchers along with other weapons.

Fighting continues in central and north Gaza as well:

Operations to counter armed terrorist cells and conduct targeted raids on terrorist infrastructure extended to the central and northern Gaza Strip, where approximately ten terrorists were killed in the Shati area over the past 24 hours.

If you want to know why Hamas is pushing and pushing for an end to the fighting one need only to read these reports to see that they won’t be in power much longer.