The Israeli government has requested families of detainees in Gaza to stop their protests demanding the return of their loved ones in anticipation of an upcoming wartime council meeting regarding a prisoner swap deal with Hamas.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported that the Israeli official in charge of detainee affairs requested during a meeting with the families to cease the demonstrations that call for actions to recover their children "as the government is doing everything to achieve this," according to his statement.
The detainees’ families had staged a sit-in on Sunday and blocked a street near the entrance of the Israeli Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv for 241 seconds, representing the number of detainees captured at the beginning of the war.
Their continuous efforts aim to urge the wartime council to work towards reaching a prisoner exchange deal and securing the detainees' return.
Moving their protest to the main entrance of the Ministry of Defense, the families announced their intention to remain at the site until a new direction for the prisoner swap deal is declared.
In the same context, Channel 12 indicated that the wartime council would discuss in its meeting tonight a new avenue for a potential prisoner exchange deal with Hamas.
According to Israeli radio, the killing of three detainees in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood in Gaza by the army has had significant repercussions on the decision-making circle in Tel Aviv.
A view from the funeral of an Israeli detainee killed by occupying soldiers in Gaza (Reuters)
Paying the Price
Benny Gantz, a member of the wartime council, spoke to the families of the detainees about the possibilities of reaching an agreement, saying that there would be no problem paying the price, but the difficulty lies in reaching an agreement.
Earlier, the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation revealed that the government is considering the release of prisoners with long-term sentences in the upcoming exchange deal with the Palestinian resistance.
Two Egyptian sources confirmed that Israel and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) are open to renewing the ceasefire and releasing detainees.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has urged his government members to listen to the voices of the soldiers’ families who were killed in the ongoing battles in the Gaza Strip.
In his speech to the government on Sunday, Netanyahu recited what he claimed to be the will of these soldiers' families.
