News Digest — 1/31/25
Hostages Keith Siegel, Ofer Calderon and Yarden Bibas to be freed by Hamas Saturday
The three Israeli hostages slated for release by Hamas from Gaza on Saturday were named Friday as Ofer Calderon, 54, Keith Siegel, 65, and Yarden Bibas, 35, officials said.
Israeli officials said that the families have been notified and that Israel accepted the Hamas list.
Siegel, a US citizen originally from North Carolina, was taken captive with his wife Aviva from Kibbutz Kfar Aza. She was freed during a previous ceasefire in November 2023.
Calderon was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7 with two of his children, who were both freed in the previous ceasefire.
Bibas, his wife Shiri, and children Ariel and Kfir were all taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Hamas has claimed that Shiri and the two boys were killed in captivity. While Israel has not officially confirmed their deaths, it has expressed “grave concern” for their fate. Yarden was wounded during his kidnapping.
So far, 10 Israeli hostages have been freed as part of the current deal, which mandates the release of 33 so-called “humanitarian hostages” during its first 42-day phase, with fighting stopped in the Strip. Five Thai hostages have also been freed.
As those hostages — women, children, elderly people and sick people — are gradually released, Israel is to release some 1,904 Palestinian security prisoners, including more than 100 serving life sentences for deadly terror attacks.
The three-phase deal’s later stages are subject to negotiations with the stated goal of reaching a “sustainable calm” in the enclave, alongside the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza, the release of more Palestinian security prisoners and an Israeli withdrawal from the Strip.
The hostages are among 251 Israelis and foreigners kidnapped on October 7, 2023, when some 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists burst into Israel, killing some 1,200 people, amid rampant acts of brutality and overt targeting of civilians.
Rafah Crossing to re-open Friday, terrorists among those to leave
The Rafah border crossing situated in the southern Gaza Strip is set to be opened on Friday for the exit of 50 wounded Palestinians who have received security clearance from the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency).
The crossing will be operated by European inspectors of the European Union Border Assistance Mission to Rafah (EU BAM) and Gazans unaffiliated with Hamas.
Along with EU BAM, the crossing will be overseen by Gazan Palestinians who are unaffiliated with Hamas. These Palestinians are believed to be connected with the Palestinian Authority and have received approval from Israel, Israeli public broadcaster KAN cited Gazan sources as saying.
The initial opening was intended to be on Sunday, day 14 of the hostage-ceasefire deal. However, due to the release of hostages on Thursday, which was not in the original agreement, the opening was rescheduled for Friday.
Among those who will leave Gaza through the Rafah Crossing for medical treatment abroad are members of Hamas’s military wing, KAN reported. The wounded will also reportedly be permitted to return safely to Gaza upon recovery.
Rubio on Gaza: The real challenge is what happens when the ceasefire expires
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday gave an extensive interview to journalist Megyn Kelly, discussing the ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza, among other topics.
Asked whether he expects some of the American hostages to be released in the first phase of the deal, Rubio replied, “I expect we will, because that’s the agreement that was made”.
He then stressed that “the core problem here remains and that is ultimately, as long as there is an entity like Hamas, whose expressed purpose is the destruction of the Jewish state, who is willing to commit horrifying atrocities against civilians, against teenage girls at a concert, and do the things that they’ve done and take hostage for a year and a half babies and elderly, and murder and all the things that they did – that’s a threat to Israel’s national security. What country in the world can be expected to live alongside an enemy armed, capable and willing of committing horrifying atrocities?”
“So I think that the ceasefire is important because it brought an end to some of the destruction and certainly allowed hostages to be freed at an extraordinary cost. I mean, we’re talking about a ratio of one to, you know, you get a teenage hostage in exchange for 250 killers, Hamas killers that are released from prisons, so just think about how unfair that trade is,” Rubio added. “But it tells you how much, you know, we value life compared to what the other side, the Hamas animals, view this.”
Rubio opined that “the real challenge here is going to be what happens when the ceasefire period expires. Who’s going to govern Gaza? Who’s going to rebuild Gaza? Who’s going to be in charge of Gaza? Because if the people who are in charge of Gaza are the same guys that created October 7th, then we still have the same problem.”
“The good news in the region is in Lebanon. We have a government that hopefully will become more powerful than Hezbollah in the Lebanese government, and there’s a ceasefire that was extended there that ultimately will lead to that. In Syria, a group has taken over. These are not guys that would necessarily pass an FBI background check, per se…but if there’s an opportunity in Syria, if there is an opportunity in Syria to create a more stable place than what we’ve had historically, especially under Assad, where Iran and Russia dominated and where ISIS operated with impunity, we need to pursue that opportunity and see where that leads.”
“And if you have a region in which you have a more stable Syria, a more stable Lebanon, where Hezbollah is not able to do the things it does on behalf of Iran, a weakened Iran, who’s now lost all of these proxies, it now opens the door to things like a deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which would change the dynamic to the region,” Rubio continued, “and then ultimately, not make easy, but make easier resolving some of these challenges that we face with the Palestinian question, and in particular with the Gaza question.”
“So there’s a lot of work to be done there. None of it is certain. All of it is hard, but real opportunities that we couldn’t have even imagined 90 days ago,” he said.
Hamas confirms death of terror chief Mohammed Deif months after Israeli strike
The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas officially confirmed on Thursday that its military chief, Mohammed Deif, was killed during the Gaza war, almost six months after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported his death.
Deif, the architect of Hamas’s military capabilities, is believed to have been one of the masterminds behind the terrorist group’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — which sparked the Gaza war.
Abu Ubaida, a Hamas spokesperson, also reported the deaths of Deif’s deputy, Khan Younis Brigade commander Rafa Salama, as well as senior operatives Marwan Issa, Ghazi Abu Tama’a, Raad Thabet, Ahmed Ghandour, and Ayman Nofal.
According to the IDF, Deif was killed in an airstrike in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on July 13 of last year.
Following weeks of intelligence assessments, Israeli authorities gathered evidence to confirm Deif’s death before publicly announcing it in early August.
“IDF fighter jets struck in the area of Khan Yunis, and … it can be confirmed that Mohammed Deif was eliminated in the strike,” the military said. “His elimination serves the objectives of the war and demonstrates Israel’s ability to carry out targeted strikes with precision.”
At the time, Hamas neither confirmed nor denied Deif’s death, but one official, Ezzat Rashaq, stated that any announcements regarding the deaths of its leaders would be made solely by the organization.
“Unless either of them [the Hamas political and military leadership] announces it, no news published in the media or by any other parties can be confirmed,” Rashaq said.
In November, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Deif, as well as for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.
Deif is believed to have collaborated closely with the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, managing military operations and coordinating with the group’s top commanders throughout the conflict.
After Deif’s assassination, then-defense minister Gallant posted an image on social media praising the Israeli military’s accomplishment.
“The assassination of mass murderer Mohammed Deif — ‘Gaza’s Bin Laden’ — is a major step toward dismantling Hamas as a military and governing entity, and achieving the war’s objectives,” he said.
Defaced Auschwitz survivor mural finds new home at Rome’s Shoah Museum
A mural depicting the last two Italian Auschwitz survivors became part of the permanent collection of the Shoah Museum in Rome after it was defaced and erased.
The mural, which was made by artist aleXsandro Palombo, depicts Holocaust survivors Liliana Segre and Sami Modiano in blue-and-grey striped clothes under green bulletproof vests with gold stars of David on them. It was defaced three times and was completely removed by vandals in Milan before the Shoah Museum acquired it.
When the mural was vandalized, perpetrators used white paint to cover the two survivors’ faces and the yellow stars on their clothes. However, they left the serial numbers tattooed on Segre and Modiano’s respective arms.
“They took away my face, my identity, they erased the yellow star, but they left the number tattooed on my arm,” Segre told Italian media after the mural was defaced.
The museum added that the defacement seriously upset Modiano as well.
The artwork now stands in the middle of the historic Jewish ghetto in Rome.
