When asked by Blitzer how meaningful it was to see Israeli hostages reunited with their loved ones after being held by the terror group Hamas for over a month in Gaza, Herzog \u2013 whose role is largely ceremonial \u2013 said the moment was bittersweet. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something that gives us happiness, but of course, happiness with a lot of sorrow in it because there are at least 200 hostages still held out there in Hamas \u2013 under Hamas duress, somewhere in bunkers,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
So far 41 hostages have been released in the first two days of the truce, with a third group expected on Sunday. <\/p>\n
Herzog was speaking ahead of a third release of hostages on Sunday, which saw 17 more people released. <\/p>\n
<\/strong>On the topic of whether a truce could be extended, Herzog pointed out it was in the original agreement that there would be an extra day of ceasefire for every 10 hostages released. But he said it was up to Hamas to free more hostages. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was agreed in the original agreement, which has been violated constantly by Hamas but still implemented piecemeal, that if they bring another 10 prisoners or so the exact number, of course, is in the agreement itself, there will be an extension of another day of humanitarian pause. <\/p>\n \u201cI truly hope that in this instance, they [Hamas] will release more and more and they will get more and more, humanitarian process.\u201d <\/p>\n It remains open who will run Gaza following the conflict. <\/p>\n Speaking about his post-war vision for Gaza, Herzog described \u201csome sort of a formation that is effective enough, but also represents the various interests.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThis is the vision. It has to be an interim process until there will be an exiting where we are all sure that Gaza is not anymore a terror base.\u201d <\/p>\n When pressed by Blitzer on whether he was describing an international coalition involving Israel, the United States and other countries, Herzog said it would be \u201csomething in that line.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI would say further that this idea of a coalition or joint forces also has to look to the future of regional stability,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n Herzog acknowledged Israel would have some role in a post-war Gaza, saying \u201cthe security and well-being of this place in terms of the security element, meaning fighting terror, enforcing law and order, adjudicating and so forth will stay in Israeli hands until there is an agreement.\u201d <\/p>\n More long-term, US President Joe Biden is among those who say that a two-state solution is needed to bring permanent peace to the region. Herzog appeared cool on the idea. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t rule out all options that could be reviewed as to the fate and what should be the vision. I definitely respect President Biden\u2019s comments on this, and I always believed in the ability to move to peace. But I must say, honestly, we must look at the reality honestly and loosely and say, does this solution secure the well-being and peaceful existence of Israelis, as well as, of course, our Palestinian neighbors?\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWhy would any Israeli immediately rush to this solution when he or she thinks that that state one day can be taken over by Hamas? <\/p>\n Among those freed Saturday was a nine-year-old girl with joint Irish and Israeli citizenship, Emily Hand. <\/p>\n Reacting to the news, the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar tweeted that \u201can innocent child who was lost has now been found and returned.\u201d <\/p>\n Herzog criticized the remark. \u201cI saw a leader from another \u2013 from a distinguished European country tweet as to the release of one of the girls who was released last night saying that she was \u2013 she got lost and thank God she\u2019s back home. No, sir. She wasn\u2019t lost. She was kidnapped by terrorists of the worst kind that humanity has seen since World War II.\u201d <\/p>\n He went on to accuse Western countries of being \u201cindifferent\u201d to Israeli suffering. <\/p>\n\n When asked by Blitzer how meaningful it was to see Israeli hostages reunited with their loved ones after being held by the terror group Hamas for over a month in Gaza, Herzog \u2013 whose role is largely ceremonial \u2013 said the moment was bittersweet. \u201cIt\u2019s something that gives us happiness, but of course, happiness with <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12106,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12105","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} Post-war Gaza<\/h2>\n
A two-state solution<\/h2>\n
Irish prime minister<\/h2>\n