Israel considers deal over hostage-prisoner swap and temporary ceasefire

Israel’s war cabinet convened on Thursday night to discuss the framework for an emerging deal to release some 50 hostages, mainly children and women civilians, in return for a ceasefire of a few days and Israel releasing Palestinian security prisoners.

One of the 238 hostages in Hamas captivity is Irish citizen Emily Hand, who was seized from kibbutz Be’eri. She will be nine years old on Friday. “We’ve got the hope she’s alive,” said her father, Irish-born Tom Hand, in a special video clip released for her birthday. “That somehow we’ll get her back, that we’ll be able to hug her, kiss her and fix her.”

Israeli soldiers have discovered the body of a 65-year-old woman hostage close to Gaza city’s Shifa hospital, which Israeli commandos entered on Tuesday night.

The body of Judith Weiss from Kibbutz Be’eri was found on Tuesday after soldiers searched a building next to the hospital, based on intelligence information.

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Ms Weiss was being treated for breast cancer before she was kidnapped. Her husband was killed in the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th.

Troops continued searching inside al-Shifa hospital on Thursday. Hospital director Muhammad Abu Salmiya claimed that the soldiers took bodies from the compound.

The army revealed weapons and equipment it claims were used by militants inside the hospital. But Israel has still failed to produce evidence to back its claims that the central Hamas military command centre was located beneath the complex. Hamas and staff at the hospital, Gaza’s largest, deny the allegations.

Meanwhile, at the end of a two-day visit to the Middle East on Thursday, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin warned that Israel’s war against Hamas could fuel Palestinian radicalisation.

Speaking in Tel Aviv, Israel as he prepared to return to Dublin, Mr Martin said there was nothing to suggest from his talks with Israeli president Isaac Herzog and foreign minister Eli Cohen that the country was willing to step back from the military action, the scale of which has been widely condemned.

“They’ve been consistent and resolute in their approach in terms of dealing with Hamas,” he said of the Israelis.

On the risk of radicalisation in Palestine, he added: “What you’re essentially doing is you’re creating fertile ground for more extreme views to grow and that is a real concern.”

Mr Martin said he could “only speculate” as to what could happen in the context of talks on the release of Israeli hostages being held by Hamas, but added that he had not picked up anything from his meetings with the country’s leaders about any potential change to their approach.

In terms of a fresh push for a political solution to the conflict, sparked by Hamas attacks that killed more than 1,000 Israelis on October 7th, he said “most ideas are at an embryonic stage” at the moment.

“In terms of the Israeli perspective it seems to me that they’re looking at it purely through the military lens right now. And through to their own aim of eliminating Hamas and that is their entire focus, as well as the release of hostages,” he said.

“We have to keep working on this and keep the pressure on in terms of the pressure for the humanitarian dimension to this thing, in the dominant dimension to this loss of life is far too great. And it really simply has to stop.”

Three more Irish citizens passed through the Rafah crossing from the Gaza strip into Egypt with those remaining expected to be allowed through in the next two days.

A total of 23 Irish citizens left Gaza via the Rafah crossing on Wednesday, the first to escape the enclave since the Israel-Hams war erupted there a month ago.

A spokesman for the Department of Housing said it, the HSE and the Department of Social Protection would ensure that accommodation and related supports were available to Irish citizens evacuated from Gaza.