*Israel Rejects Freedom For Oct 7 Attackers Who Triggered Gaza War
*The Behind-The-Scene Trade-Offs Planned
A blanket of some welcome semblance of peace could finally descend on Gaza should today’s ceasefire talks in Cairo go successfully.
In a deal birthed by US President Donald Trump, who has called for speed, Israeli and Hamas negotiators will see eyeball to eyeball to try and hammer out a ceasefire to the war which has claimed at least 67,000 Palestinian lives,aside thousands buried in the rubble of high-rise buildings literally pulverized by Israeli air bombings.
Ahead the talks,which would involve prisoner exchange on both sides, Hamas is set to demand the release of some of the most notorious Palestinian terrorists, whom Israel had refused to set free, in talks marking the first phase of Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza.
Under Trump’s plan, the Palestinian Authority (PA) — which Israel accuses of incitement to terrorism in its schools and through payments to terrorists — would take control of Gaza only after it “has completed its reform program.”
Until then, the plan stipulates that the Gaza Strip will be governed by an international transitional “Board of Peace” headed by Trump.
The deal would also see Hamas release the remaining 48 Israeli hostages in its custody within 72 hours, in exchange for 250 life-term Palestinian prisoners; 1,700 Gazans detained since the October 7 massacre of Israelis by Hamas, which sparked the Gaza war; and the remains of 15 slain Gazans in exchange for each deceased hostage, of whom there are at least 26.
Citing Hamas sources, Channel 12 TV station reported that among the jailed terrorists whose release Hamas is demanding are Marwan Barghouti, the Fatah Tanzim chief serving five life sentences for his part in planning three terror attacks that killed five Israelis during the Second Intifada, and Ahmad Sa’adat, leader of the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), who was sentenced in 2008 to 30 years behind bars for masterminding the 2001 assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi.
Hamas was also demanding the release of Ibrahim Hamed, serving 45 life terms for orchestrating the killings of numerous Israelis as Hamas’s West Bank Commander during the Second Intifada; Abbas al-Sayed, who orchestrated the 2002 bombing at the Park Hotel in Netanya in which 39 Israelis were killed; and Hamas’s Hassan Salameh, who is serving 48 life terms for plotting multiple suicide bombings.
Channel 12 cited a Hamas source saying the terror group “won’t give up” on securing the release of these and other life-term terrorists, “even at the cost of dooming the deal.”
There are currently 303 security prisoners serving life sentences in Israel.
In a separate, unsourced report, the network said Hamas is also demanding that Israel release terrorists from Hamas’s elite Nukhba force, who took part in the group’s October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre — a demand Israel has consistently rejected.
Speaking to Channel 12, Israeli Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter — a cabinet Minister and former Shin Bet (internal security and counter-intelligence service ) chief — appeared to indicate that Israel would be willing to release the convicted terrorists, but raised doubts about freeing those involved in the October 7 massacre.
Dichter noted that in the past Israel had freed some of the most notorious terrorists, including Hamas’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was twice released in deals.
In 1985, Israel traded him and 1,150 other security prisoners for three captured IDF soldiers. He was later rearrested.
In 1997, he was released as part of a deal in exchange for two Mossad officers captured in Jordan while trying to kill Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal.
“I twice brought him to jail and once to the end of his life,” said Dichter, who was Shin Bet chief when Yassin was assassinated in an Israeli Air Force helicopter strike in 2004.
Dichter said that while there was precedent for releasing convicted terrorists, those who participated in the October 7 massacre had not yet been tried for their crimes. “It’s a different story,” he said.
*PHOTO CAPTION: One of those Hamas wants released is jailed terror convict and Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti (c), here accompanied by Israeli prison guards after a hearing at Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, January 25, 2012.
PHOTO CREDIT: Reuters.
