The armed wing of Hamas said Monday it was prepared to release up to 70 women and children held hostage in the Gaza Strip in exchange for a five-day ceasefire. In an audio recording, a Hamas spokesperson accused Israel of stalling on implementing the deal.
On Monday, family members confirmed the killing of 74-year-old Canadian Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver in Hamas’s attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, near Gaza. She had been missing since October 7, and her family had believed she might have been taken hostage. Silver co-founded the Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment and Cooperation and was a member of Women Wage Peace. In 2017, she joined a march of Israeli and Palestinian women to the shores of the Jordan River to call for an end to Israel’s occupation.
Vivian Silver: “We must reach a political agreement. We must change the paradigm that we have been taught for seven decades now, where we’ve been told that only war will bring peace. We don’t believe that anymore. It’s been proven that it’s not true.”