According to Axios, Israel has suggested to Hamas, through Qatari and Egyptian mediators, a two-month cease-fire as part of an agreement to rescue all captives held in Gaza.
According to the article, which cites anonymous Israeli officials, the plan would be implemented in phases, with the first including the release of women, males over the age of 60, and those in serious medical condition.
Subsequent phases would include the release of female troops, younger civilian males, male soldiers, and the remains of deceased hostages.
Officials claimed the arrangement will also result in the release of an undisclosed number of Palestinian detainees detained in Israel, but not all of them.
The plan calls for Israeli soldiers to withdraw from key Gazan cities and to progressively enable people to return to the region’s damaged north, but it makes no assurances about ending the conflict.
According to the officials, the agreement should be implemented in about two months.
The plan was also covered by the Israeli publication Ynet, which cited anonymous sources and said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made mention of it at a Monday meeting with the families of the captives.
The idea was made public just as US media reported that Brett McGurk, the White House’s Middle East coordinator, was scheduled to visit the area for discussions in Egypt and Qatar with the goal of negotiating a fresh prisoner swap agreement.
About 250 hostages were taken during Hamas’s bloody October 7 attacks, and Israel says around 132 remain in Gaza.
That includes the bodies of at least 28 dead hostages, according to an AFP count based on Israeli data.
The October 7 attacks resulted in the deaths of about 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
In response, Israel launched a relentless offensive that has killed at least 25,295 people in Gaza, around 70 percent of them women, children and adolescents, according to Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry.
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