Meanwhile on the International front....

Wait a minute, I thought Iran was pissed at Hamas and was going to let them twist.

 

I saw that, too. It just makes no sense to me why Israel would take less than a one-for-one exchange.

 

Israel has released over 1000 prisoners in the past to recover one hostage. Happened over a decade ago. I think the ones to be released were incarcerated prior to 10/7/23.

 

That seems stupid, too.

 

Just as with the hostages, the first batch of prisoners to be released are primarily women and children. What pray tell are children doing in Israeli custody? Beats me.

 

At a guess, they raided the homes of active Hamas fighters or they were found in tunnels. It is also possible that some of the women were active Hamas members, whether as a combatant or not.

 

They are teenagers and, according to an NPR report, one of them attacked an Israeli border guard with a knife.

 

Live updates: Israel-Hamas war, hostage release deal, 4-day Gaza truce

The agreement is in place, with the fighting scheduled to stop 7 a.m. Friday. Israel will be releasing 39 prisoners. Hamas agreed to release 50 hostages. Let's see if this actually happens.

 

This is good, I guess, but seems stupid, too. Imagine: Everybody looks at their watches, cell phones, whatever, and goes, "Oh, it's 7 a.m. We need to stop bombing and missling everbody for a couple hours. Then, "Oh, we can start killing everybody again now. Let's get to it. Bombs away again."

How can people do this?

 

They didn't, at least not really. There was still fighting after the deadline.

 

It's hard to trust any death toll in any war, especially this one.

But,

Gaza Civilians, Under Israeli Barrage, Are Being Killed at Historic Pace