BOSTON (WHDH) - Hopes are high that 15 months after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, and after tens of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis have been killed, peace may finally be coming to the troubled region in light of the ceasefire agreement announced Wednesday.
But here in Boston, Marc Baker, President and CEO of Combined Jewish Philanthropies, is concerned the agreement could fall apart.
“I think it’s incredibly tenuous. I think I’ll believe it when I see it. I think, again, we can remain hopeful, we can keep praying, but we have to remember just how precarious this is,” said Baker.
Baker has been to Israel often since October 7, 2023, and will return again next week. He says it’s unclear just how many hostages will be released, and how quickly.
“I think we can be cautiously hopeful,” Rabbi Baker said. “This is so emotionally fraught. We’ve been watching with bated breath, frankly for 467 days. And this deal, and this ceasefire, is definitely cause for celebration that some hostages will return to their families and relatively soon. But there’s so much that can go wrong, and we need to see as this plays out.”
Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general, expressed his frustration that this didn’t come sooner.
“What really upsets people, is that this deal, almost verbatim, is the deal that could’ve been struck in March, in May, and again in July,” said Pinkas.
The Israelis have agreed to release hundreds of prisoners in exchange for hostages, but the question is, did they give up too much?
“I don’t think anyone feels good about releasing prisoners who have life sentences for killing Israelis, or for terror,” said Rabbi Baker. “We’re not in the room where these deals happen. This kind of deal, and these kinds of negotiations, are obviously incredibly complicated.”
Rabbi Baker says he really has no idea if Americans could be released in the coming weeks, but he sure hopes so.
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