Hostage Captivity austerity reveals….
Plastic chairs as beds. Meals of bread and rice. Hours spent waiting for the bathroom. As hostages return to Israel after seven weeks of Hamas captivity, information about the conditions of their confinement has begun to trickle out.
The 58 hostages freed under a cease-fire deal over the past three days have largely stayed out of the public eye, with most still in hospitals around the country.
Nearly two months after Hamas militants dragged them into Gaza during a bloody cross-border attack on Israel that also killed 1,200 people, most freed hostages appear to be in stable physical condition.
Information about the conditions of their captivity has been tightly controlled, but family members of the released hostages have begun to share details about their loved ones’ experiences…
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Lifshitz said captives were treated well and received medical care, including medication. The guards kept conditions clean, she said. Hostages were given one meal a day of cheese, cucumber and pita, she said, adding that her captors ate the same.
There were initial indications that the recently freed hostages had also been held underground. Eyal Nouri, the nephew of Adina Moshe, 72, who was freed on Friday, said his aunt “had to adjust to the sunlight” because she had been in darkness for weeks.
“She was in complete darkness,” said Nouri. “She was walking with her eyes down because she was in a tunnel. She was not used to the daylight. And during her captivity, she was disconnected … from all the outside world.”…
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A extension of the cease fire pause?
The Palestinian armed group Hamas said Sunday it was willing to extend a temporary cease-fire with Israel after the current four-day pause is over.
The pause in fighting began on Friday and was slated to continue into Monday. Under the terms of the deal, Hamas agreed to free at least 50 hostages, all women and children, while Israel would release from its prisons 150 Palestinian women and minors, some of whom were detained for violent crimes. (Hamas has separately released other foreign nationals, including 13 Thai citizens.)-
The temporary cease-fire is the longest break in the fighting in Gaza since Oct. 7, when gunmen from Hamas and other militant groups launched a deadly attack on southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking roughly 240hostage, according to the Israeli authorities. The Israeli response — including weeks of devastating airstrikes and a ground invasion — has killed more than 13,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in Gaza.
The Israeli government previously said that it was prepared to grant an additional day’s pause for every 10 hostages Hamas releases beyond the 50 outlined in the agreement, but Hamas had not publicly responded to that possibility until Sunday.
“The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas seeks to extend the truce after the 4-day period ends, through serious efforts to increase the number of those released from imprisonment as stipulated in the humanitarian cease-fire agreement,” the group said in a statement….
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A Cyprus effort to start a seaborne access to Gaza for aid……
A sea corridor from Cyprus to supply humanitarian aid to Gaza is creating some formidable logistical challenges and could require innovative fixes ranging from landing craft to a large floating platform, where ships can unload containers.
For now, the only aid route into the war-shattered coastal enclave is over land from Egypt at Rafah, but there is an increasing diplomatic push to use ships as they could deliver 500 times more aid than trucks. Israel’s Ambassador to Cyprus Oren Anolik has called the seaborne corridor a “positive initiative” but warns “there are plenty of details that need to be sorted out and discussed.” Egypt is also in favor.
The main practical challenges include the dangers posed by the war and the fact that Gaza’s port is too tiny to dock large freighters…
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Palestinian students IN Vermont attacked because of who they are?
“All three victims were struck, two in their torsos and one in the lower extremities,” the Burlington Police Department said in a statement. All three remain hospitalized, one with very serious injuries, the department added.
The victims’ parents identified them in a statement as Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ahmed. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, a civil rights advocacy group, said it believed the students were targeted because they are Palestinians. Police said that two are U.S. citizens, and one is a legal U.S. resident….