85631 - Transcription: Podcast With US #136: Israel, Hamas and Israeli Hostages

N. Lygeros

A very crucial problem in this conflict and now this war between Israel and Hamas and not of course Palestine, is the problem of Israeli hostages. Because it’s the first time that Israel has to solve a problem of this magnitude. That’s why we say that there is a difference and this difference makes the difference. It’s not only a few hostages, it’s a very big number and to solve this problem we need a global solution. For the moment we see that the message from Israel is very clear. Gaza will not be provided with any electricity, water or fuel until  Israeli hostages been held by the Hamas return home. The problem is rather easy if we can imagine that they just have to return and it will be solved. But on the other side with Hamas it’s very important to keep these  Israeli hostages to press Israel and to force Israel Forces to do something which is different. So we can see that of course the hostages are being kept underground because they want from the side of Hamas to keep them away from the Israel Intelligence. So we have a situation which is complex and we have to find a solution and a resolution. So certainly we will have a negotiation about the Israeli hostages. So now we have to fix a new kind of problem because the size of the set of hostages is very big, so it’s not just a classical problem of negotiations about hostages. So if we think about that certainly there will be a pressure from both sides to solve this and a way to do this is of course something which is global and not local, maybe many local solutions are not sufficient and we need a global solution. But we know already that Israel is able to negotiate the return of even one hostage with many from the other side. So now that’s why I say the problem is crucial because the size makes the difference and we have to handle a new problem.