US envoy meets Israeli hostage families in Tel Aviv • FRANCE 24 English

Uh what more can you tell us about that visit? Well, I can tell you that for now the visit uh has not produced results and has left a lot of confusion. the family members of hostages still held in Gaza, including some whose truly horrific images, hostages whose images were posted uh in the last 24 hours or so by the Islamic Jihad uh in Gaza left the meeting with Witkov deeply discouraged and feeling that the White House is choosing to follow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s line rather than imposing its own view that the war should be ended on the Israeli government. Um Steve Witkoff told the families that Prime Minister Netanyahu has made a decision to end the war, something Netanyahu has absolutely not told the Israeli public to the contrary. And he also told the families that Hamas had agreed to lay down its arms. It didn’t take more than a couple of hours for Hamas to issue a statement just around half an hour ago saying that that was not the case. and that they retain the right to bear arms as long as the occupation lasts and until there is a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem. So, we seem to still be treading water. The families of hostages and many other Israelis have been protesting all day long in Tel Aviv. Larger protests are projected for tonight. And for now, this visit seems to have not done much more than just so confusion and malaise here in Israel. Now, uh, Noga, as you mentioned, there’s been a lot of talk uh, you know, negotiations, indirect negotiations sort of ended in a deadlock a week ago. It seems there’s growing desperation on all sides and not much is getting accomplished, is it? That’s exactly right. And it’s really um I think creating a feeling of airlessness certainly in Gaza, but more widely in all of the Palestinian territories in the West Bank where violence is also surging. Uh in Gaza where citizens can continue to die every single day. In Israel where uh missiles continue to be launched from Yemen and on occasion from Gaza. um and where there is simply a feeling of suffocation among the general public that does not support the government’s insistence on continuing to wage war uh and that feels desperation at the fate of Israeli citizens, 50 of them or so who are still being held hostage. at least 20 are thought to still be alive, but from the images that have been uh distributed by the Islamic Jihad, it doesn’t seem like they have a long time to live. The pictures that we saw recently here involve two very young men aged 21, 22. And so you’re hearing really calls of desperation in Gaza, people saying they have no way to get food without endangering their lives. and in Israel feeling that the country is simply being torn apart by the government’s refusal to respond to any kind of pressure that’s being put on it. Noga, thank you so much for updating us. That’s France 24’s uh jer J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J J Jerusalem correspondent No Tornupski.

US envoy Steve Witkoff met Saturday (August 2) the families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, according to the main association representing those still in captivity almost 22 months after being seized during Hamas’s October 2023 attacks. FRANCE 24’s Noga Tarnopolsky tells us more.
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