How to navigate a Hostage situation is an opinion
Two American Hostages Released by Hamas During the Attack on Israel are Freed: Biden and her Sister, Saray Cohen,
About 200 hostages are thought to remain in the hands of Hamas, including dozens of children, according to the IDF, and a small number of Americans, according to U.S. officials. “We have not ceased our efforts to secure the release of those who are still being held,” Biden said.
Cohen said in the video that the mother and daughter went to Israel together to celebrate the mother’s birthday. We don’t know what’s happening to them, where they’re being held. She wanted them to come back to us.
President Biden said in a statement that he was overjoyed that the citizens would soon be returned to their families.
The elder Raanan, also known by her Hebrew name, Yehudit, is an operating room nurse. Her daughter had recently graduated from high school and was taking a gap year to travel, according to Saray Cohen, Raanan’s sister, who spoke with the Israeli public broadcaster Kan.
The Associated Attack on Raanans and Nahal Oz: The Israelis and the Palestinians are negotiating with Israel, Qatar, and Hamas
The pair were received by Israeli military at the border of the Gaza Strip, according to the prime minister’s office. “They are on their way to a meeting point at a military base in the center of their country, where their family members are waiting for them,” the statement said.
Ranaans spent the night in a guesthouse in southern Israel after Hamas flooded the borders of Gaza and Israel. Israeli officials say more than 1,400 people were killed in the attack, including hundreds in their homes and at a music festival.
Nahal Oz is just half a mile from the Gaza border and was among the towns attacked. Cohen said family members had been in contact with the Raanans even as the fighting began. They received updates from the pair who hid in a safe room, according to relatives.
There is a small chance that the hostages will be released through this kind of agreement before the ground assault begins. After the invasion begins, it will depend on Israeli special forces to try to save them.
There are still talks taking place. Qatar is speaking with Hamas and the United States is speaking with Qatar and Israel. This is difficult to understand. No one else should be involved in talks with Israel, Qatar, and Hamas. Not the United States, and not Iran. The International Committee of the Red Cross helped broker the agreement of Hamas to release the two Americans.
Israel‘s status as a prisoner’s advocate for the right epsilon: a Palestinian perspective on the tragic events of Oct. 7
“The news that Judith and Natalie have been released gives us overwhelming gratitude to God that our prayers are being heard,” Rabbi Meir Hecht of Chabad of Evanston, who is close to the family, told NPR.
We need a new generation of leaders with new vision, new hopes, new dreams and the ability to lead. I believe that the hostages will be able to join in the calls for change once they’re released.
Aya Batrawy contributed reporting in Jerusalem; Daniel Estrin and Liz Baker contributed reporting from Tel Aviv; and Deepa Shivaram contributed reporting from Washington.
Over the nation’s 75 year history,Israelis have been held hostage many times. In 1974, Members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine held a group of people, most of them high school students, in northern Israel for two days and ended up killing 22 of them. An Air Force officer, Ron Arad, was shot down over Lebanon in 1986 and was never returned. In May 1985, Israel released 1,150 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the return of three Israeli soldiers captured in Lebanon.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had once been the most against of negotiating with terrorists, came to realise that the ethos of leaving no soldier behind did sometimes need that kind of engagement.
According to a Palestinian prisoner rights group, Israel holds about 7,000 Palestinian prisoners, of which 559 are serving life sentences for killing Israelis. Will Israelis, still reeling from the atrocities of Oct. 7, be willing to accept this kind of bargain again? Is it safe to do so? One of the men who killed my wife’s cousin, who was released in exchange for Gilad Schalit, was among the leaders of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, according to Israel’s report of his recent killing.
There is still a role for the United States. It should keep pressure on them and give them an ultimatum that if they don’t release prisoners within 24 hours, the leaders of Hamas will be kicked out of the country where they are based. I don’t believe that Qatar will agree to that — and certainly not without an Israeli cease-fire — but the American government and others have leverage over Qatar and it should be used.
I hope the trauma we are all feeling on both sides of the conflict will prompt us to find a way to share this land that is both Israelis and Palestinians. It is possible that suffering and pain can be turned into focus to focusing on how to live together. That will be a long process and cannot include the leaders on both sides who have brought us to where we are.
Israeli officials said that Hamas had taken at least 20 children, including toddlers; more than a dozen people in their 60s, 70s and 80s; and people who suffer from Parkinson’s disease, heart problems, diabetes and cancer. On top of that, several hostages were gravely wounded by gunshots and grenades during the terrorist attack.
In the past 10 days, he said, the Red Cross has met face to face and held numerous telephone calls with Hamas officials, but, “considering the level of violence in Gaza, I see it as extremely complicated for us to do our work.”
“The starting point — and I have a hard time getting away from this — is that there are people who should never be there,” said Fabrizio Carboni, the organization’s regional director for the Near and Middle East, in an interview this past week.
They should all be released but the ones with specific medical conditions should be even more so. There’s not a way to provide medical assistance in Gaza today. “We asked for it. Today we are far away from it.
Hamas has released two Americans it had held hostage since the Israel-Hamas conflict in July, Israeli media reported. The two were released by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) at the border of the Gaza Strip, the report said. About 200 people are thought to be remaining in the hands of Hamas, including dozens of children, US officials said.