This Wednesday, Hamas announced that it had handed over all the hostages and hostage remains its members could retrieve. There are still other bodies that have yet to be returned, but special equipment is being sent to gather them.
The returning of hostages was part of the Gaza peace plan proposed by President Donald Trump, which was officially announced on Oct. 8. This first phase of the plan includes Israel withdrawing their forces in addition to Hamas’s sending of hostages. Hamas was given 72 hours to give back the remaining hostages, including twenty who are alive and twenty-eight dead.
“I think that we’re looking at a lot of competing incentives from different parties…the incentives of the Israeli and Palestinian people don’t necessarily match the incentives of their leaders,” history teacher Jay Konik said. “I think that it [the success of the 20-point plan] will really come down to how effective the people in those countries are at communicating their goals and desires, and to what extent the politicians feel it’s in their interest to listen to the people or just kind of do whatever they want to do,”
Hamas returned the living hostages as of Monday, but nineteen of the dead have yet to be returned. On the same day, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz posted on social media that delay or avoidance of the deadline would be considered a violation of the proposed agreement. However, Hamas representatives have stated that they do not know the locations of said bodies.
“I mainly heard about the ceasefire vaguely online, through a New York Times article, but I never fully learned about what happened,” freshman Qiara Delacruz said. “I feel like there is room for more exposure to this situation, and just news like this in general,”
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has expressed support and agreement towards Trump’s proposal. In a press conference with Netanyahu, Trump expressed his goal of sustaining long term peace. In addition, on Israel’s side of things, part of the proposal is that Israel will release life sentence prisoners as well as other Gazan detainees. Israeli military operations are also expected to withdraw up until a certain agreed line, at which all forces will be suspended until the rest of the proposal points are reached.
“I think that it’s good that they released the hostages,” junior Alexandra Herrmann said. “I think it could be a sign of progress, but I also think that tensions there have always been really high.”
Along with the lowering of aggression, the agreement comes with aid that will be sent to Gaza, including a Palestinian committee sent to provide public services. The committee is to be headed by Trump and will ultimately be meant to redevelop and reform Gaza. Later points also mention coordinating with other international partners such as Arab, Jordan, and Egypt.
“I think that there’s a lot of potential in this moment. I think that the fact that the Israelis and Palestinians have agreed to stop shooting presents an enormous opportunity,” Konik said. “I remain skeptical, but also hopeful.”
