Qatari mediation achieves Gaza ceasefire, swapping 50 hostages, including women and children, for over 150 Palestinian prisoners, including many children, held in Israeli jails.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has allegedly pledged to Doha that Israel would not carry out assassinations of Hamas leaders living in Qatar, according to a Le Figaro journalist.
French journalist Georges Malbrunot said that Qatar set this condition before stepping into its role as a mediator for the ceasefire talks between the Israeli regime and the resistance group, sources told the French reporter.
According to Malbrunot’s sources, Israel said Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, would not carry out assassinations within the Gulf country’s borders.
Despite the private pledge to Qatar, Netanyahu had previously given orders for the Mossad to assassinate senior Hamas officials, a confidential source privy to the matter detailed to Malbrunot.
During the press conference on Wednesday with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Netanyahu explicitly stated that he had instructed the Mossad to take action against Hamas leaders.
Netanyahu said, “there is no commitment in the agreement to not act in a truce against the leaders of Hamas, whoever they are.”
In response to questions about a possible clause in the ceasefire agreement granting immunity to Hamas leaders, Netanyahu insisted that “such a clause does not exist.”
Gallant further intensified the situation by claiming that Hamas officials were “living on borrowed time, all over the globe; they are all dead men.”
The Qatari mediation effort led to a Gaza ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, which involves the release of 50 hostages, including women and children, held by Hamas in Gaza in exchange for more than 150 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons.
The deal marked its third day on Sunday, with a new batch of prisoners released as outlined in the agreement.
As part of the four-day truce agreement, the first two waves of releases took place on Friday and Saturday, with Hamas releasing 26 Israeli captives and Israel releasing a total of 78 Palestinian prisoners from its jails.
The third batch involved the release of 13 Israelis held in Gaza and 39 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, in addition to a dual Russian-Israeli citizen and three Thai captives.
The ceasefire intends to halt violence for four days and facilitate humanitarian aid for the 2.3 million Palestinians in the besieged enclave.
The pause has given people in Gaza, still reeling from relentless Israeli bombardment that has driven three-quarters of the population from their homes, a few days of respite.
By day 49 of the Israeli offensive on Gaza, occupation forces had killed 20,031, including 8,176 children, as reported by Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.
