Families of hostages see hope for Israel-Hamas ceasefire

Daniel Lifshitz keeps running his hands through his short black hair. He’s trying to stay calm because, perhaps this time, negotiators will reach a hostage deal. 

“We’ve had a lot of roller-coasters, but now it feels like something is different,” he said. 

Hamas has reportedly agreed on a list of 34 names of hostages still held in Gaza — the people who would be freed should the ceasefire deal with the Israeli government currently under discussion in Qatar go ahead. The list, first published by the Saudi broadcaster Asharq, quickly reached Israeli media.

The list includes the names of Lifshitz’s grandfather Oded, 84, and Arbel Yehud, 29. A portrait of Yehud beaming into the camera wearing a white dress and white hairband is printed on the sweatshirt Lifshitz wears in Tel Aviv.

Yehud is the younger sister of Lifshitz’s friend Dolev, who was killed in the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2024. Nearly 1,200 people were killed during the Hamas attacks and a further 251 were kidnapped and taken to Gaza.

One of the first hostages to be released was Lifshitz’s grandmother. Released after 17 days, pictures of the 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz standing next to a masked Hamas fighter went around the world.

Since then, she has been waiting for the other hostages to come back, he said.

Year without deals

In November 2023, there was a limited ceasefire that saw 105 Israeli hostages released in exchange for 150 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. No similar exchange has taken place since.

There are an estimated 100 hostages thought to still be held in Gaza. Of them, 29 were kidnapped from Nir Oz, the area where Lifshitz grew up.

Exactly how many of the hostages are still alive remains unclear. The Israeli military has occasionally found the bodies of hostage in Gaza, including this week, when it reported it had found two corpses. One of the dead hostages, Yosef AlZayadni, 53, was on the list of names to be released currently being discussed in Qatar.

“That was my hard feeling today,” Lifshitz said, “to think that in one or two months, if this deal will not be closed, maybe we will see more names on the list that won’t be there.”

‘Israel has refused to end the war’

Gershon Baskin, a peace activist who says he is one of the only Israelis who has had direct contact with Hamas members for years, said: “Hamas has been wanting an agreement for months.”

In 2011, Baskin negotiated the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been held hostage in Gaza for five years. Shalit was exchanged for more than 1,000 Palestinians held by Israel. Among them was Yahya Sinwar, who would go on to lead the military wing of Hamas. Sinwar is thought to be the chief architect of the October 7 attack and was killed in a firefight in Gaza with the Israeli military in October 2024.

“Hamas wants a comprehensive agreement that ends the war, returns all the hostages, frees Palestinian prisoners and gets Israel out of Gaza,” Baskin said. “But Israel has refused to end the war.”

Baskin said he was skeptical about a deal for the named hostages as he said they were on a list originally published by the Israelis in summer. And, according to his sources, Hamas only knows the whereabouts of 20 living hostages.

“They need a ceasefire with free movement and no flyovers to find out what happened to all the hostages,” Baskin said.

Since Israel killed Sinwar, Hamas has had no real leadership, Baskin said, complicating efforts to pressure the organization, which the United States, Germany, Israel and several other governments have listed as a terrorist group.

Trump‘s inauguration presents opportunity

The next US president will be sworn in on January 20 and, Baskin said, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “may want to give Donald Trump a gift on his first days in office.”

Baskin said he told his Hamas contacts to realize the opportunity that Trump’s inauguration offers to reach a comprehensive deal. 

“What I was trying to tell Hamas is that, if they made public that they are willing to release all hostages in exchange for ending the war and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and the Palestinian prisoners, then Israeli public pressure would build so strongly on Netanyahu that he wouldn’t have a choice,” Baskin said.

According to opinion polls, more than 80% of Israelis would support a deal in which the hostages are released in exchange for Palestinians. The cities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are plastered in posters, murals and stickers with portraits of the hostages and calls to bring them home.

That includes pictures of the soldier Nimrod Cohen, 19. He was kidnapped from the Israeli military base Nahal Oz on the border between with Gaza. 

“We know he is one of the last ones to be released. He is male, he is young, he is healthy, and he was a soldier,” his brother Yotam Cohen said. Cohen’s name is not on the list of hostages to be released, and his family wants to ensure that there is a second round of negotiations.

“They are all on the verge of dying,” Yotam Cohen said. “There is absolutely no reason to release some and leave others.”

Ending the war

Yotam Cohen said he held Netanyahu responsible for the failure to secure the release of his brother and the other hostages and he believed that Israel’s ongoing campaign in Gaza is killing hostages.

Shortly after October 7, Cohen himself served in Gaza. According to the United Nations, more than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed, primarily by Israeli airstrikes during the campaign. The vast majority of the people killed have been women and children, hospitals and medical facilities have been destroyed by the Israeli military, and aid organizations have repeatedly reported the danger of severe malnutrition and even starvation in Gaza.  

Yotam Cohen said he believed that Hamas has been mostly defeated militarily, yet Israeli soldiers are still dying in Gaza and the remaining hostages continue to suffer. 

“We are seeing the pictures of Gaza,” Yotam Cohen said. “I don’t hate the Gazans. I believe that the people in Gaza — and I know that the people in Israel — want to end the war. Even if I was asked, I would say no to going back as a soldier to Gaza. There is no more reason [for us] to be in Gaza.”

That’s not to say that people shouldn’t serve in the army or that they should refuse conscription, he said: It’s more of an appeal to the Israeli government not to send any more soldiers into this conflict, and to end it, and to bring all the hostages home.

This story was originally published in German.