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The recently announced prisoner exchange deal between the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the Israeli occupation has emerged on the surface of international newspapers' follow-up to the developments of the war in the Gaza Strip, where the Financial Times reported a crisis of confidence in Israel after the October 7 attack, while the Swiss newspaper Luton saw that Hamas knows how Israel negotiates on prisoner issues.
At dawn on Wednesday, Qatar announced the reaching of a humanitarian truce agreement in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas with joint mediation with Egypt and the United States, the timing of which will be announced within 24 hours, and includes the exchange of 50 prisoners of civilian women and children in the Gaza Strip in the first phase in exchange for the release of a number of Palestinian women and children detained in Israeli prisons.
The Swiss newspaper Luton said that Hamas's choice to differentiate between civilian and military hostages instead of negotiating about all at once, gives it the opportunity to maintain pressure on Israel, and quoted an expert as saying that the movement knows how to deal with the Israeli government on the issue of hostages since the deal with soldier Gilad Shalit.
While an article in the Financial Times spoke of a crisis of confidence in Israel and Zionism, after Hamas attacks cast doubt on the idea that the Jewish state would be the safest home for Jews, the article argued that the ability of Hamas, a "small and relatively weak adversary," as it described it, to provoke reactions since October 7, foreshadows the depth of the crisis of confidence inside Israel.
The Wall Street Journal commented in an editorial on the prisoner deal, arguing that the domestic and international picture will become more complicated for Israel, predicting a split in public opinion at home, increasing pressure to maintain an indefinite ceasefire abroad, and harsher criticism if fighting resumes after the truce days.
An article in the Washington Post talked about the role of pressure exerted by the families of detainees in pushing Israel towards an agreement, which targeted the Knesset, foreign diplomats, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, until it ended with persuading the Israeli government to agree to temporarily halt its offensive on Gaza in order to return the hostages.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz said in an editorial that Netanyahu bears responsibility for the October 7 attack because he had received information from the IDF's Military Intelligence Directorate about the possibility of it but ignored it, adding that Netanyahu had failed in his most important mission, which is to ensure the security of Israelis. At the end of the war, he will have to confront a government commission of inquiry and explain his failures.
Source : Al Jazeera