As Gaza ground invasion looms, mediators try to free more than 100 hostages

The last time Meirav Leshem-Gonen spoke to her daughter, Romi, was early Saturday morning when the 23-year-old frantically pleaded for help as gunmen shot at her and her friends as they tried to flee a music festival in southern Israel by car.

“She was saying: ‘Mommy, mommy I have been shot. We are all injured,'” said Leshem-Gonen, who was at home in northern Israel when Hamas militants crossed the border from Gaza and launched a brutal surprise attack against several communities in southern Israel.

Leshem-Gonen told CBC News that she could hear gunfire and shouting in the background when her daughter told her she had been shot in the hand.

Since then, Leshem-Gonen has learned that two people in the car were killed and has attended their funerals, but Romi is still among the missing. The family believes she could be among as many as 150 hostages held by Hamas inside Gaza.

“You just feel shattered,” she said.

“It’s like a glass bowl that someone has dropped on the floor, and you have all the broken glass. That is how I feel.”

She can’t bring herself to search through the disturbing videos that have been posted of the attacks and the moments afterward.

Instead, she said, she needs to focus so she can speak out about her daughter and the rest of the missing, who also include citizens from the U.S., France and Canada.

Unprecedented situation

During Saturday’s multi-pronged attack, it is believed that Hamas militants took dozens of hostages, including young children and the elderly, back to Gaza, where they may be being held in the group’s vast network of underground tunnels.

While Israel has previously gone to great lengths and taken huge risks to secure the release of hostages, experts say this situation is unprecedented and complex because the hostages are being held in a war zone, and Israel remains determined to punish Hamas for killing more than 1,300 Israelis.

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Despite Hamas’s threats to execute a hostage every time civilians are targeted in Gaza without warning, Israel is continuing to launch airstrikes and appears to be on the brink of a ground offensive into Gaza as part of its vow to “wipe Hamas off the Earth.”

More than 1,500 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.

In a statement, Hamas said13 hostages were killed in Israeli airstrikes Thursday.

Israel has warned Hamas that electricity, fuel and water will remain cut off to Gaza until the hostages are released. Beyond that, Israel hasn’t said anything about negotiations.

“Even though everybody is worried about the fate of the hostages … there is no public pressure at the moment from the government to [negotiate],” said Nimrod Novik, who was a senior adviser to former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres.

Novik is also an adviser to Israel’s National Security Council and a fellow with the Israel Policy Forum, a U.S.-based organization that advocates for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He says despite the Israeli government’s public posture, there are undoubtedly discussions going on behind the scenes that involve countries like Egypt and Qatar, which each have influence over Hamas, and Turkey, which has said it is working to free the hostages.

Novik said European mediators are also likely involved.

“The big issues are negotiated always by proxy,” he said in a Zoom interview with CBC News from his home in Ra’anana, Israel.

Qatar’s influence may be limited, expert says

Qatari mediators have reportedly held calls with Hamas officials to try to negotiate the release of women and children in exchange for Palestinians who are being held in Israeli prisons.

Novik said many of Hamas’s senior leaders are based in Qatar, and the country spends millions of dollars each month supporting the impoverished region.

But Novik said in this case, Qatar’s influence might be limited as the Hamas leaders in Gaza may be the ones making the decisions at this point and the outcome could depend almost entirely on their mood.

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As for Egypt, it has influence over Hamas because of the Rafah crossing, which sits on the edge of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and southwest Gaza and is not controlled by Israel.

The crossing has been closed since Tuesday because of Israeli airstrikes

The Egyptian government is involved in discussions to open a corridor to provide humanitarian aid, as water, food and fuel quickly run out in Gaza.

U.S. talking to Qatar

The U.S. has also confirmed it is speaking with Qatar about how to secure the release of the hostages. On Thursday, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the U.S. has not ruled out any options.

Officials believe a small number of U.S. nationals are among those being held and are working to gather additional details.

“It is very difficult to establish a connection with hostage-takers in normal situations, but this is a war,” Phil Andrew, a former FBI hostage negotiator, said in an interview with CBC News.

Complicating it further is the uncertainty around the “command and control structure” of Hamas, Andrew said.

“There is a big difference between those who might be holding a hostage and those who are in the high echelons of power,” he said.

Andrew said U.S. teams would now be speaking with families of the missing Americans to gather any information, as well as advise them on potential scenarios, including what they should do if they get a call from someone claiming to be holding their family member.

Novik told CBC News that he doesn’t believe Israel’s government will make any decisions around hostage negotiation before its intelligence community determines whether a rescue is possible.

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‘She’s a woman of a small stature, but in spirit she’s a giant,’ Yonatan Zeigen tells CBC’s Adrienne Arsenault about his mother, Vivian Silver. She was in Kibbutz Be’eri when it was attacked by Hamas, and Zeigen fears she was taken hostage.

In 1976, around 30 Israeli commandos stormed the airport terminal in Entebbe, Uganda, in an effort to free more than 100 people. They had been taken hostage after an Air France plane was overrun by Palestinian and German hijackers and diverted to Uganda.

Most of the hostages were Israeli and nearly all of them survived the ordeal. One Israeli commando was killed in the mission, Lt.-Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, the brother of current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Families of Israeli hostages plead for their return

Dozens of Israelis are being held hostage, many taken from a desert concert near Gaza, and their families are fearing the worst while pleading for their return.

Novik said if a rescue mission is not possible, the negotiations will likely be conducted in phases and will become increasingly difficult as time passes.

“We know the potential for a deal is greater in the very early days of the situation,” he said.

“The longer it takes, the positions are hardened.”

Novik said when negotiations began in 2006 for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier imprisoned by Hamas, initially there was talk about exchanging Shilat for a few dozen Palestinians.

By the time the deal was struck in 2011, Shalit was released for more than 1,000 prisoners.

Novik said the public supported the lopsided exchange because there was great demand to see Shalit free.

Meirav Leshem-Gonen said that this time, the entire world now needs to push for the hostages to be released.

She and other families are speaking to the Red Cross about whether there could be any potential humanitarian mission to provide medical treatment to the hostages.

She said that even if her daughter is already dead, others in the group are most certainly injured.

“Now is the time to work together,” she said.

“We need to make sure all the captives, all the kidnapped, come back home.”