Joy mixed with fear for Israelis awaiting Gaza hostage release

TEL AVIV: Israelis expressed both joy and apprehension at the announcement of a Gaza ceasefire and hostage exchange deal on Wednesday, fearing that not all those held captive would come home.

“On one hand, of course, I’m very happy, but I’m also preoccupied because I want to see the deal continue until the last hostage is back at home, in his bed, the living and the dead”, Ornit Barak, 59, told AFP.

“We are very preoccupied that at some point it will, for some reason, stop and we will continue back to war”, she said at a protest calling for an end to the war and a release of all hostages.

Qatar’s prime minister announced that Israel and Hamas had agreed Wednesday to a ceasefire after over 15 months of war.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, cautioned that some issues in the framework remained “unresolved”, though it hoped the “details will be finalised tonight”.

Israeli president Isaac Herzog, who holds a largely ceremonial role, said the deal was the “right move” to bring back hostages seized during Hamas’s Oct 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war.

Arnon Cohen, a chef from Nahal Oz kibbutz – one of the Gaza border communities hardest hit by the attack – said he would not be satisfied until all the hostages were freed.

“For us, it’s only the beginning, we want them all here. It doesn’t end, it’s not enough if just some of them come back,” said the chef, noting that two people from the kibbutz were still being held in Gaza.

“We want them here, with all the other hostages, dead and alive”.

Dead or alive?

Ifat Kalderon, the cousin of the hostage Ofer Kalderon, said: “I have mixed feelings. On one hand, it’s joy, (but) mixed with terrible anxiety that it will, actually, happen.”

“If the deal does happen, I don’t know how Ofer will return – whether he is alive or not – but I do believe he is alive,” she said, hoping her relative is among those released.

“I truly, truly hope it won’t end with just the 33 hostages returning home, but that everyone will return.”

The Qatari PM said the deal agreed by Israel and Hamas involves a first stage in which 33 hostages will be released, beginning with women and children, in exchange for a thousand Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

A second stage, requiring further negotiation, is expected to follow.

Palestinian militants took 251 people hostage during Hamas’s surprise Oct 7 attack, of whom 94 are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

“The pain is very great, I can’t imagine what the families (of the hostages) are going through,” said Tamar, a 38-year-old from Jerusalem.

“We need to do everything to get them home”.