I mean, we desperately want to get those American hostages out. But if you saw those kids in the hands of those terrorists, like, with a mom heart, it made me sick to my stomach for all those parents having to see their children in those terrorist hands. So, of course, we want them out.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu credited Joe Biden with improving the terms of the agreement, so that it had “more hostages and lower costs”.
00:00:49 Meanwhile, in Israel, some families met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war cabinet today. They have been furious with what they see as government inaction. They also hit the streets last week, marching from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. More than six weeks after the deadly Hamas terror attack, only a handful of Israelis have been released alive. And in recent days, Israeli forces say they've recovered the bodies of two more. So where do things stand on getting the rest out of Gaza?
Alex Marquardt
00:01:21 The sense from our conversations is that they are quite close in terms of the terms, but how that is actually implemented is quite complicated.
They want you to know what has happened to their child, and they want the world to know that there are seriously wounded people who were taken by Hamas
[Goldberg-Polin’s] left hand and part of his arm is blown off
[He says that he] sincerely [hopes that the hostage release agreement] will be actually executed. [And he hopes the results of negotiations will be seen in] next few days.
That might be wishful thinking, Mark. There are a lot of innocent people being killed by bombs that Israel is raining down upon Gaza, and even if, as I know the IDF believes that Israel has killed 5,000 members of Hamas, that’s thousands of innocent people, including women and children, babies, that Israel has killed. Even if it’s an accident, even if it’s collateral damage, izat’s a lot of innocent lives that have been killed by Israel.
We join together to call for an immediate, multilateral ceasefire in Israel and Palestine, the release of all the remaining Israeli and international hostages, and the facilitation of humanitarian aid entry into Gaza,” the statement says.
We further urge our own respective governments and the international community to uphold international law and seek accountability for grave violations of human rights.
