When three Israeli hostages had been free of Gaza on Sunday, Meital Ofer, an Israeli kindergarten trainer, felt two competing feelings.
To start with, Ms. Ofer felt pleasure – three of her compatriots, all girls, had been freed after greater than 470 days of captivity.
But someplace at the back of her thoughts there was additionally a way of ache. To free the ladies, together with thirty different hostages anticipated to be launched within the subsequent six weeks, Israel promised to launch about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, a few of whom are serving lengthy sentences for killing Israelis.
A type of inmates killed Ms Ofer’s father in an ax assault 11 years in the past.
“I am comfortable they’re again,” Ms. Ofer, 48, mentioned of the hostages. However she added: “There are painful emotions realizing that the person who killed my father shall be on the free.”
For each Israelis and Palestinians, the truce introduced pleasure and celebration, but it surely additionally got here at a value to each peoples.
The deal leaves Israel answerable for strategic elements of Gaza, stopping many Palestinians from returning to their often-destroyed properties, a minimum of for now. It has additionally compelled Israel to make painful concessions – together with the discharge of convicted terrorists and the chance that Hamas, the instigator of the assault that began the conflict, will now stay in energy.
Regardless of a 15-month counterattack that devastated Gaza and killed tens of hundreds of Palestinians, many Israelis now worry the nation has failed in its wartime targets.
After utilizing Gaza as a springboard to hold out the deadliest assault on Jews for the reason that Holocaust, Hamas nonetheless controls a lot of the territory, permitting its surviving members to parade jubilantly via a number of Gaza cities after the ceasefire started. For the Israelis, who nonetheless search the group’s complete defeat, these scenes had been stunning.
Others may forestall Hamas from surviving if it led to the discharge of all hostages nonetheless held by the group in Gaza. However the compromise reached by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, assured the discharge of solely a 3rd of them. Even these shall be launched at a excessive worth — in alternate for prisoners convicted of a number of the most infamous terror assaults in Israel’s historical past, along with scores of ladies and minors held with out cost.
“There’s an excessive model of ambivalence – we really feel two reverse feelings, strongly and concurrently, a mix of maximum pleasure and excessive worry,” mentioned Micah Goodman, an Israeli thinker.
That worry takes two types relying on political beliefs, Mr. Goodman added. Many on the Israeli left worry that the truce will collapse earlier than each hostage is launched. And plenty of right-wing Israelis fear that the truce will develop into everlasting, stopping the entire defeat of Hamas.
“There’s not an Israeli I do know who has not been extraordinarily captivated by the pictures of our sisters returning house,” mentioned Mr. Goodman, the writer of a number of books on Israeli id. “However the Israelis had been afraid that we would lose the chance to convey the remaining hostages house,” he added. “And the Israeli proper fears that if the conflict ends with Hamas nonetheless round, we might have misplaced the conflict.”
Yitzhak Horn’s predicament epitomizes the battle many really feel on the Israeli left. Mr Horn’s sons, Eitan and Yair, had been kidnapped throughout the Hamas raid on October 7, 2023. — however solely Yair is on the discharge record for the primary six weeks of the ceasefire. Eitan might by no means be launched if the Israeli authorities, below stress from its right-wing base, renews efforts to defeat Hamas after these six weeks are up. For now, Mr. Horn is not certain whether or not to rejoice or mourn.
“I used to be offered with a modern-day Solomonic dilemma,” Yitzhak Horn mentioned in a radio interview Monday, referring to the biblical story of a mom compelled to decide on between killing her little one and giving it away.
“We’re all proud of what occurred yesterday and we hope that issues will proceed like this,” he mentioned. “Alternatively, I am offended and disillusioned and scared as a result of I do not know what is going on to occur – when Eitan goes to return again.”
This disenchantment with the hostage motion is compounded by a way that the federal government may have executed extra to undermine Hamas whereas the conflict was nonetheless raging. Arguing that Hamas can solely get replaced after the conflict ends, the federal government has repeatedly refused to hunt a switch of energy in Gaza, which might have allowed extra average Palestinian actors to rule the territory in Hamas’ place.
Over the previous 15 months, Israeli troops have at one level or one other taken management of most cities in Gaza, forcing Hamas to flee to different areas. However in every case, the navy left with out making an attempt the tough activity of handing over energy to Hamas’ rivals.
“Hamas not solely survived militarily — its regime additionally remained intact,” Avi Issaharov, an Israeli commentator, wrote in a Monday column for the centrist newspaper Yediot Ahronoth.
“Numerous that’s completely because of the Israeli authorities,” Mr. Issacharoff continued. “For months, Netanyahu and his ministers have steadfastly refused to carry a radical dialogue about making a authorities different to Hamas.”
Regardless of variations over wartime technique, Israelis of all backgrounds shared ambivalence in regards to the choice to alternate Israeli hostages for Palestinian detainees.
Yair Cherki, an Israeli journalist, described the complexity of cheering for the discharge of the hostages – one in every of whom, Romi Gonen, is a household good friend – as he found that his brother’s killer can be launched as a part of the identical deal.
“It has been lower than 10 years for the reason that homicide, lower than a decade and he’ll get out? It is insupportable,” Mr Cherki mentioned at a televised roundtable.
However he concluded: “Romy is alive and that’s the fundamental and easy factor. My view has not modified: Romy ought to be right here.
Mira Novek and Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.
