Hamas Released Another 12 Hostages, Israel Says

A group of 12 more hostages were released on Tuesday, Israel said, hours after each side accused the other on Tuesday of violating the truce, the first time either has made such an allegation since the agreement went into effect last Friday.

The Israeli military said that explosive devices were detonated near its troops in two places in northern Gaza, and that militants in one area fired on them. Hamas said its fighters had engaged in a “field clash” provoked by Israel, without offering additional details. But neither side signaled that it was pulling out of the agreement.

For now, small extensions serve both Hamas and Israel.

Hamas can prolong its control of most of Gaza after being routed in northern parts of the territory since Israel invaded more than a month ago. A longer pause would give Hamas more time to regroup and reposition its forces, and more aid could be delivered from Egypt to Gaza’s 2.2 million residents, most of whom have been displaced by the fighting and face profound food and fuel shortages.

Israel gets to welcome back more of the roughly 240 hostages who were captured by Hamas and its allies at the start of the war on Oct. 7. For every extra day of the cease-fire, the two sides have agreed to exchange roughly 10 Israelis for 30 Palestinians jailed by Israel. The return of the missing Israelis, many of them women and children, has provided a huge boost for the Israeli public, much of whom follows every exchange closely.

But the longer that dynamic lasts, the greater Israel’s conundrum.

Each daily prisoner release boosts Hamas’s popularity in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where many of the freed Palestinians have returned, and where Hamas and other armed groups are waging a low-level insurgency.

A long pause slows the momentum of Israel’s invasion, endangering its stated goal of removing Hamas from power. Already, Biden administration officials say they have pushed Israel to fight more surgically once it returns to its invasion, as international pressure builds on Israel to stop its attacks entirely.

Most of all, some Israelis fear that a prolonged extension would give Hamas too much influence over the Israeli psyche, said Anshel Pfeffer, a political commentator for Haaretz, a left-leaning Israeli newspaper.

The capture of so many hostages, including a 9-month-old baby, traumatized many Israelis.

The complicated hostage release process, fraught by delays and disagreements between Hamas and Israel, has heightened that torment.

“Israel faces a real dilemma,” said Mr. Pfeffer. “With each hostage release, Hamas holds the whip hand over Israeli emotions. Ultimately, Israel will have to decide between freeing more hostages — or preventing Hamas from dictating the mood of the country.”

Some analysts say domestic pressures will probably prompt Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to revive the invasion sooner rather than later. A delayed resumption of the attack would put Mr. Netanyahu on a collision course with far-right government ministers who grudgingly supported the cease-fire because they were assured that the invasion would continue after only a short truce.

Before the latest transfer, Hamas had released 50 Israeli hostages and Israel had freed 150 Palestinian prisoners. Nineteen other hostages in Gaza — 17 Thais, one Filipino and one Russian-Israeli dual citizen — had been released since Friday through separate negotiations. A vast majority of hostages released since the cease-fire began are women and children.

Israel has generally referred to dual nationals as Israelis in discussing the hostages. A number of agricultural workers were seized along with Israeli citizens and dual nationals during Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, and some of whom have been freed through talks held separately from those between Israel and Hamas.

The cease-fire has held since Friday, despite Israel and Hamas accusing one another of violating the cease-fire terms, and with each day a group of hostages has been released from captivity in Gaza, paired with the release of larger groups of Palestinians from Israeli imprisonment or detention.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Israeli military said that three explosive devices were detonated near its troops in two locations in Northern Gaza and militants opened fire at Israeli troops at one of those locations. Hamas said they had engaged in a “field clash” provoked by Israel.

And over the weekend, Israeli officials expressed concern to Qatari mediators that some children were being released without their mothers who were also being held captive, going against the agreement according to an official briefed on the talks. The official said that Hamas claimed that in those cases, mothers and children were being held by different groups.

Still, neither Hamas nor Israel has said it would pull out of the agreement.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has cited the recovery of hostages in justifying his support for the pause in Israel’s ground invasion — and has also said that Israel’s military is ready to resume fighting once the cease-fire arrangement ends.

But the deal also gives Hamas time to regroup and retrench, making Israel’s objective of rooting it out more difficult. And Israel’s release of Palestinians from imprisonment or detention under the arrangement has been accompanied by growing support for Hamas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The extended cease-fire has also allowed aid to reach more of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents, most of whom have been displaced by the fighting and face dire shortages of food, medicine and fuel.

Where does the cease-fire agreement stand?

Israel and Hamas have extended their brief truce from four to six days, according to Qatar, which has been mediating their talks. The agreement has so far held, despite accusations by each side that the other had violated it.

Since Friday, Hamas has released at least 50 Israeli hostages and Israel has freed 150 imprisoned Palestinians. Nineteen other hostages in Gaza — 17 Thais, one Filipino and one Russian-Israeli dual citizen — have been released since Friday through separate negotiations.

Another exchange was moving ahead on Tuesday.

Where does Israel’s military campaign stand?

Before the cease-fire agreement took hold on Friday, Israel’s military had bombarded the Gaza Strip for weeks, saying it had struck over 15,000 targets. The bombardment included the use of very large weapons in dense urban areas, and Palestinian health authorities in the Hamas government have said that more than 13,000 people have been killed, including thousands of children. The bombardment, the large number of deaths and the displacement of the majority of Gaza’s 2.2 million people have fueled international outcry over the scope of Israel’s campaign.

Israel has said it is targeting Hamas all over Gaza, including in places where its members are embedded among civilians, like hospitals and shelters, and in an extensive tunnel network underground.

Early in the war, the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of northern Gaza, ahead of a ground invasion. More than a million people fled south, and the invasion began in late October.

Israeli troops have captured a swath of northern Gaza roughly in the shape of a C: the northern edge of the strip, a sliver along the Mediterranean coast, and the central strip below Gaza City. The forces largely encircled Gaza City and split the strip in two halves, seeking to disrupt Hamas’s grip over the enclave and begin ousting it from its biggest city. But there appear to be parts of northern Gaza that the Israeli military does not control.

Israeli forces have also closed in on Gaza’s hospitals, seizing Al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest and most modern. Israel said Hamas used tunnels beneath the hospital as a command center, accusations the group and hospital staff denied.

The Israeli military has since sought to show evidence of its assertions, releasing videos that show parts of a tunnel shaft on the grounds of the Shifa complex, and rooms within the tunnel. But Israeli troops have moved slowly, wary of explosives and traps.

The military has said it has destroyed some Hamas tunnels, but has not said that its troops have been fighting inside them.

Ron Dermer, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, told Sky News on Nov. 7 that the Israeli military had killed “several thousand” Hamas fighters since the war began. He said that the total at that point was greater than 3,000 and “probably close to 4,000 already.” Israeli officials estimate that Hamas had numbered about 25,000 members before the war began.

More than 70 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ground invasion began, according to the Israeli military.

What about Hamas’s leadership?

Hamas has acknowledged the deaths of several commanders in the war, including at least one senior figure. A number of other Hamas officials and commanders are believed to have been killed. Yahya Sinwar, the hard-line leader of Hamas in Gaza, remains a top target of Israeli forces.

Israeli leaders have said they do not want to reoccupy Gaza after the war, and it remains unclear how or whether they can eliminate Hamas completely from the strip. And in the West Bank, which the Israeli military occupies, support for Hamas has grown amid the recent releases of Palestinians and mounting frustration with the Palestinian Authority, which oversees the West Bank.

The political leadership of Hamas is not within Israel’s reach. Qatar hosts Hamas’s political leaders in its capital, Doha, where Qatari officials have been mediating the talks between Israel and Hamas alongside Egypt and the United States.

The army’s chief rabbi made a determination the soldiers had been killed during the Hamas-led attacks in which 1,200 people were massacred, based on evidence and intelligence reports, according to ynet.com, an Israeli news site.

Military funerals will be held on Wednesday for two of the soldiers, Sergeant Ahimas and Sergeant Brodski, ynet.com reported, suggesting enough remains were recovered and identified for funerals to be held for them under Jewish tradition.

Sigalit Gal, the mother of Sergeant Dahan, said in a Facebook post that she would not start the weeklong Jewish mourning ritual of Shiva for her son until his body was returned. “I fought all my life to take care and raise you with love, excellent education, values, a proper environment,” she wrote. “You were taken from me forever. They took you and did not care to return you — not even your body.”

It was not immediately clear why the army press office made the announcement on Tuesday, or whether the announcement might indicate that the soldiers’ bodies would be linked to the release of further Israeli hostages from Gaza.

Israel has in the past been willing to pay dearly in order to return bodies of its fallen soldiers to their families for burial, often releasing large numbers of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for bodies. In 2008, for example, Israel released five prisoners, including a Lebanese man convicted of murder, in order to obtain the bodies of two fallen Israeli soldiers.

Both Egypt and Qatar have had prominent roles in the hostage talks. Qatar hosts Hamas’s political leadership in Doha. And Qatari officials in recent days have been speaking with Hamas representatives about how to potentially expand the hostage releases, according to an official briefed on the talks.

Qatar announced on Monday that Israel and Hamas had agreed to extend a pause in fighting for two additional days to exchange more hostages and prisoners and to allow more aid to come into Gaza.

One U.S. official said Mr. Burns’s talks in Qatar would be meant to build on that agreement.

U.S. officials have been deeply involved in pushing for a deal to release hostages taken during the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7. Mr. Burns traveled to Doha on Nov. 9 as he and Mr. Barnea held talks with Qatari officials who have been working on the issue.

Hamas and Israel finally reached a deal on Nov. 21, and exchanges began later that week. During the first four days of the truce, 50 Israelis or dual nationals were released under the framework of the deal, and an additional 19 hostages — 17 Thais, one Filipino and one Russian-Israeli dual citizen — were released through separate negotiations. In exchange for the release of the Israelis and dual nationals, Israel paused its military campaign in Gaza, allowed more aid to flow into the enclave and released some Palestinian prisoners.

Some American officials have expressed hope that the temporary pause can be extended into something of a more permanent cease-fire, though Israeli officials have said their military campaign must continue.

A spokeswoman for the C.I.A. said the agency does not comment on the director’s travel.

Israel has been concerned that some of the Hamas hostage releases have separated children from their mothers or broken apart siblings. Throughout the talks this month, Israeli officials have pressed for Hamas to release entire families and over the weekend stressed to American officials that they did not believe Hamas was living up to the bargain.

Those concerns were addressed enough on Monday for the pause to be extended and for the parties to agree to additional talks in Doha.

Mr. Burns was chosen to represent the United States in the hostage talks after Israel selected Mr. Barnea to work with the Qatari government to secure a deal. Neither Mr. Burns nor Mr. Barnea has negotiated directly with Hamas officials, instead working through Qatari intermediaries.

President Biden has often used Mr. Burns as a secret negotiator, taking advantage of his long diplomatic experience and the C.I.A.’s policy of trying to keep the director’s travel secret.

But Mr. Burns is particularly well suited for the current negotiations. A former ambassador to Jordan, he has a deep level of trust with leaders across the Middle East, according to U.S., Israeli and Arab officials. During his visit to Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Qatar earlier this month, he focused largely on building support for an agreement to release hostages.

“Eventually we will see more people dying from disease than we are even seeing from the bombardment” if the health system is not repaired, Ms. Harris said.

“It’s not just the hospitals,” she said. “Everybody, everywhere, has dire health needs, because they are starving,” she added, noting that there was a lack of clean water and a rise in infectious diseases, including diarrheal and respiratory illnesses.

An assessment of U.N.-run shelters in northern Gaza on Friday found “no medicines, no vaccination activities, no access to safe water and hygiene, and no food,” Ms. Harris reported. “You’re very unlikely to get any medical care because it just isn’t available.”

The Gazan health ministry has reported more than 13,000 people killed in the enclave since Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that killed about 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials. Three-quarters of the territory’s hospitals and two thirds of health centers have shut down because of damage or a lack of fuel to operate the generators powering their equipment, the United Nations has said.

“I see children with horrendous wounds of war in car parks on makeshift mattresses in gardens,” James Elder, a spokesman for the United Nations’ children’s agency, told reporters, speaking by video link from Gaza. “I expected the worst in coming and I was surprised it was even worse than I imagined.”

The statements are the Biden administration’s strongest warning to Israeli officials to date about the next phase of their military operation. For weeks, the White House has been careful to say it does not dictate how Israel conducts its military operations, but President Biden and senior members of his staff have grown more vocal as the humanitarian crisis has unfolded.

They also come as the administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic issues, said they were ramping up humanitarian aid during the cease-fire that took effect last week, and expressed optimism that aid could continue even when fighting resumed.

Among other things, American officials have told the Israelis that any coming military operations should not hamper the flow of power and water or impede the work of humanitarian sites such as hospitals and U.N.-supported shelters in south and central Gaza.

The Israeli government was receptive to the requests, one official said.

The cease-fire, to allow for the exchange of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinians taken prisoner by Israel, has allowed for the first extended break in the violence since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas gunmen and other militant groups killed an estimated 1,200 people in Israel. Gazan health officials say at least 13,000 people were killed during the nearly 50-day Israeli bombardment and ground invasion that followed.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has made clear that he intends for Israel to continue fighting after the truce ends, though it was extended by two more days on Monday.

The Biden administration officials said the United States was planning to take advantage of the extra time. On Tuesday, the United States will begin deploying military relief flights to deliver medical items, food, winter items and other necessities for the civilian population to Egypt, which borders Gaza.

Extraordinary progress has already been made in aid delivery, the officials said, though they acknowledged that the level of assistance was not enough to support normal life in Gaza. The officials also said that the increase in aid, including much-needed fuel, was not contingent on hostage releases, offering hope that the shipments could continue when fighting resumed.

John F. Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said on Monday that since the pause in fighting had taken effect, Gaza had received its largest humanitarian convoy since the war began. The convoy brought the total number of aid trucks to over 2,000 since Oct. 21, he said.

Mr. Kirby said that the administration would “take advantage of every hour of every day that there’s a pause to try to help the people of Gaza.”

“Our team has prioritized getting this much-needed relief into Gaza to alleviate the suffering of Palestinian civilians there,” Mr. Kirby said. “Of course, most of them have nothing to do with Hamas.”

But opposition politicians and civil society organizations in the southern African nation have criticized the move as putting young Malawians at risk, and noted that the announcement comes two weeks after the Israeli government announced a $60 million aid package for Malawi.

Israel has lost about 15,000 farmworkers since the start of the war. Most of the roughly 30,000 foreign agricultural workers in Israel were from Thailand, and dozens of them were kidnapped or killed in the Hamas attack last month. About 9,000 Palestinians worked in Israel’s agricultural sector, and Israel has banned them from entering the country since the fighting broke out.

Eisenhower Mkaka, the former foreign minister who this year negotiated a broader diplomatic agreement with Israel that included the labor deal, said in an interview on Monday that at least 5,000 Malawians would go to Israel for work, and that sending laborers was not a condition of the aid package. It was not immediately clear when the deal was struck.

The leader of Malawi’s main opposition party, Kondwani Nankhumwa, blasted the government for what he called secrecy around the deal, which had been rumored for weeks.

Why is the “government willing to risk the lives of so many of our young people?” Mr. Nankhumwa said. “The fact that other countries, like Thailand, are withdrawing their labor from Israel indicates a high level of risk.”

The government defended its decision, with Wezi Kayira, the labor secretary, saying in a statement that “the safety and security of the youth is paramount.” The workers will be in locations that have been certified as safe, he said, without elaborating, and they will not be involved in activities other than farming.

Malawi, which the World Bank considers the fourth poorest country in the world, is deeply in debt, seeking relief and experiencing shortages of basic goods.

The country has long looked overseas to find jobs for its citizens, and its latest arrangement is not the first time it has sent workers to Israel. For years, the government has been sending Malawian university students majoring in agriculture to work in Israel in professional roles in farming.

The Israeli agriculture ministry confirmed that Malawi had sent several hundred workers but could not immediately give an exact number.

A decade ago, the Malawian government announced a deal to send laborers to South Korea. Critics raised concerns that the workers would be exploited and trapped in what they called a form of slavery. But the government was left embarrassed when South Korea said it had never reached a labor agreement with Malawi — a fact that a Malawian government official conceded.

Malawi has also sent workers to Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

Talya Minsberg contributed reporting.

Mr. Kirby said that the administration hoped that Americans would be part of a group of 20 women and children expected to be released over the next two days under the extended deal announced on Monday by Qatari officials.

The same Qatari officials helped negotiate the initial cease-fire deal, which has led to the release of dozens of hostages.

President Biden has been integral to brokering the deal, Mr. Kirby said, adding that the U.S. would continue to push for further extensions. “We’re going to keep working for an extension,” Mr. Kirby said. “Absolutely, that’s what we want. We want to see all the hostages out and this is the best way to get them out.”

As part of the U.S. efforts, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken will return to the Middle East this week, stopping in Israel and the West Bank before attending the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, a senior State Department official said. Mr. Blinken will stress the importance of continued humanitarian aid into Gaza, the release of all hostages held by Hamas, and the protection of civilians in the Palestinian territory, the official said.

In Washington, Mr. Kirby maintained the administration’s position that the pause in fighting could also benefit Hamas, saying it was a “real risk.” But he said that the pause had resulted not only in a halt in fighting but also a “surge” in humanitarian assistance to Gaza, including the largest shipment since Hamas’s terrorist attack on Oct. 7.

“Our team has prioritized getting this much-needed relief into Gaza to alleviate the suffering of Palestinians,” Mr. Kirby said, adding that “most of them have nothing to do with Hamas.”

Michael Crowley contributed reporting.

Under an agreement Israel and Hamas have honored since Friday, Israel had freed 150 Palestinian prisoners and detainees as of Monday night.

The Israeli military has escalated its nighttime raids across the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, saying that it had arrested at least 2,000 Palestinians in that period. The military has said that the arrests are part of a counterterrorism operation against Hamas throughout the territory.

The Palestinian Authority’s commission for prisoner affairs said that at least 3,260 Palestinians have been detained in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the start of the fighting nearly seven weeks ago. Around 7,000 Palestinians were detained in all of 2022, the commission said.

The arrests included “children, the elderly, women, and hundreds of former prisoners,” the Palestinian commission said in a statement on Monday.

The deal between Israel and Hamas has allowed scores of Palestinian families to be reunited with their loved ones. That has brought a rare moment of relief and celebration across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where violence had been escalating over the last few weeks.

But the deal did not offer a break from the bloodshed in the West Bank. At least seven Palestinians, including four teenagers, were killed by Israeli forces in clashes that erupted during military raids across the territory since Friday, according to the U.N.

At least 222 people have been killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7, according to the U.N., amid the deadliest year for Palestinians there in over a decade. The majority were shot by Israeli soldiers in gun battles during Israeli search-and-arrest operations, the U.N. said.

Ahed Tamimi, 22, is one of the highest-profile Palestinians arrested by Israel since Oct. 7, as it has conducted a sweeping campaign of raids and detentions that it says is aimed at deterring terrorist attacks but has also prompted alarm from international human rights groups.

On Sunday, after holding Ms. Tamimi for nearly three weeks without access to a lawyer or her family, Israel moved to incarcerate her under administrative detention, according to her lawyer, Mahmoud Hassan. She now faces indefinite imprisonment, without charges or trial, based on evidence that neither she nor her lawyer are allowed to view.

Israel’s expansive use of administrative detention has been widely criticized as a violation of international law. The detentions, which Israel maintains are a preventative and necessary security measure, are typically upheld by the Israeli military court system and can be renewed indefinitely. The use of administrative detentions had hit a 30-year high even before the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, human rights groups say.

“I’m hopeless to defend her,” Mr. Hassan said.

The Israeli military has said Ms. Tamimi was arrested on suspicion of inciting violence and calling for terrorist activity, but has declined to provide further information. Her mother said the arrest was based on a post to an Instagram account in her name that referenced Hitler and vowed to “slaughter” settlers in the West Bank.

Her family has denied that she wrote the post, saying her account had been hacked months ago and that she is frequently impersonated online.

Ms. Tamimi comes from a family of prominent Palestinian activists and has protested the Israeli occupation of their village of Nabi Saleh for much of her life. Her father, Bassem Tamimi, a longtime activist, was also detained, on Oct. 29, and has been placed in the West Bank’s Ofer Prison under administrative detention for six months.

Ms. Tamimi made headlines as a child for physically confronting Israeli forces, who have wounded, imprisoned and killed many of her relatives. A video of one such episode, in which she slapped an Israeli soldier, went viral and transformed Ms. Tamimi into an international symbol of Palestinian resistance.

She subsequently served an eight-month sentence and spent her 17th birthday in jail. Her memoir, “They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl’s Fight for Freedom,” was published by an imprint of Random House in 2022.

The Israeli military estimates that it has arrested 1,800 people in the occupied West Bank since Oct. 7. But the crackdown, coupled with escalating reports of violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers, has left the West Bank in an “alarming and urgent” situation with “multilayered human rights violations,” the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned.

The Palestinian Prisoners Society, a nongovernmental rights group, gives an even higher estimate for the number of detentions since Oct. 7 — more than 3,000 — and says the arrests have been accompanied by abuse of the detainees, threats against their families and, often, damage to their homes. Ms. Tamimi was beaten during her arrest, and then transferred from the West Bank to a prison in Israel, where she was beaten again, her lawyer, Mr. Hassan, said.

PEN International, a writers’ association that defends freedom of expression, has demanded the immediate release of Ms. Tamimi and “all Palestinians who have been languishing in unjust imprisonment for years, many of whom are children.”

“Administrative detention is inherently arbitrary,” the association’s head of the Middle East and North Africa region, Mina Thabet, said in a statement. “This form of detention has been systematically used by the Israeli authorities to subjugate and silence Palestinians, including writers, for decades,” he added.