Israel says ready to extend Gaza ceasefire in exchange for hostage releases

By Abdelraouf Arnaout and Rania Abu Shamala

JERUSALEM (AA) – Israel is ready to extend a Gaza ceasefire agreement in exchange for the release of more captives, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar said on Thursday.
“We said we are ready to extend the framework (of phase on) in return for the release of more hostages,” Sa’ar said at a press conference in Jerusalem after meeting with his Czech counterpart Jan Lipavsky.
He said an Israeli delegation “will go to Cairo and see whether we have common ground to negotiate.”
“If it is possible, we’ll do that. It will be better to speak at length about it after the return of the delegation from Cairo,” he added.
Israel released over 600 Palestinian prisoners on Thursday after the Palestinian resistance group Hamas handed over the bodies of four Israeli captives under the Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal.
The agreement has been in place since last month, pausing Israel’s destructive war on Gaza that has killed more than 48,360 people, mostly women and children, and left the enclave in ruins.
So far, 25 Israeli captives and eight bodies have been returned from Gaza in exchange for over 1,100 Palestinian prisoners under the first phase of the Gaza deal.
Israel estimates that 59 hostages are still held in Gaza with at least 20 of them alive and they are expected to be set free in the second phase of the ceasefire, which would require Israel to fully withdraw its forces from Gaza and end the war permanently.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.