WASHINGTON (TNND) — On the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, there are feelings of hope interwoven with those of despair and concern, of an agreement being tested at every turn.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Yusra Sultan, a displaced Palestinian woman, said When it comes to the summit, we’ve stopped seeing any credibility in anything that happens because they’ve made promises to us in the past a lot, but no one has done a thing.”
Of the four bodies of hostages handed over by Hamas on Tuesday, the DNA of one of them does not match the DNA of any hostages despite a pledge that all 28 would be immediately returned; far more than half have not.
Many of them are believed to be trapped under rubble caused by Israeli attacks.
In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty spoke about the challenges.
“Collecting the remains will take sometimes because they are under rubbles and, you have a lot of explosive materials, devices under the rubble. So reaching them will be a bit difficult, but we are doing our utmost efforts on the ground in order to collect the deceased bodies and to hand them over to the Israeli side in implementation of the agreement of Sharm el-Sheikh, phase one,” he said.
Still, Israel calls the failure to return more of the hostages’ bodies a “violation,” responding by cutting the number of aid trucks allowed into Gaza by half from 600 to 300 for now.
Another sticking point, getting stickier by the day, is how and when Hamas will disarm.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump said this:
We have told them we want you to disarm and they will disarm and if they don’t disarm, we will disarm them. And it’ll happen quickly and perhaps violently.
But members of Hamas are said to be behind the public execution of 8 Palestinians.
The gruesome video of the incident has been making the rounds on social media.
There have also been at least two shooting attacks by Israeli Defense Forces troops, suspects said to be crossing a yellow line and putting those troops in danger.
IDF Troops set to stay in certain parts of Gaza for the time being
In an interview with CBS News, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “The way you purchase peace is through strength.”
He said, “First, Hamas has to give up its arms and second, we have to make sure no weapons factories are inside Gaza, that’s demilitarization. We agree that part of the plan.”
That plan, based on Trump’s 20 point ceasefire deal, still has many more phases to work out. That includes answering the question of who will secure and govern Gaza for the foreseeable future.
