Minutes before the fragile truce was set to expire, Egyptian and Qatari negotiators negotiated another day of a cease-fire.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is in the region, said the pause has helped get more aid into Gaza and secure the release of hostages.
And two more hostages were released on Thursday, from different places and at different times. (Experts say the reason for this is because they were held in various locations, far from each other.)
The two Israeli women, Amit Soussana and Mia Schem, are with the IDF now.
To recap, Hamas has released 81 hostages to date, mostly women and children. That is out of the 240 hostages they kidnapped during the initial atttack.
“The main interest (for Israelis) is in getting those hostages home,” Gershon Baskin, a former Israeli hostage negotiator who once acted as a channel to Hamas, told CNN. “The whole country is glued to the television watching them transported in Red Cross cars and then landing in Israel.”
We would amend that to say the world is watching.