Day: December 2, 2023

JERUSALEM (AP) — A weeklong cease-fire that brought the exchanges of dozens of hostages held by Hamas for scores of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel gave way Friday morning to resumed fighting between Israel and Hamas. As mediators scuttle between the warring sides in a last-ditch effort to broker another swap, questions emerge on who remains in captivity in the besieged enclave.

Hamas and other militants seized around 247 hostages in their deadly Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, in which more than 1,200 people were killed. Israel has pummeled the Gaza Strip in return, killing at least 13,300 people, two-thirds of them women and children, according to health authorities in the Hamas-ruled territory.

Here’s a closer look at the fate of the hostages.

HOSTAGES STILL IN CAPTIVITY

Israel said on Friday that 136 hostages remain in Gaza. They include 119 men and 17 women and children, according to military spokesperson Daniel Hagari. Roughly 10 of the hostages are 75 and older, the Prime Minister’s Office said Friday.

The vast majority are Israeli while 11 are foreign nationals, including eight from Thailand, one from Nepal and Tanzania each, and one French-Mexican.

Earlier, government spokesperson Eylon Levy listed the youngest hostage, 10-month-old Kfir Bibas, his 4-year-old brother Ariel and their mother Shiri as still being among the hostages. The military has said it’s investigating a Hamas claim that the boys and their mother were killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Hagari provided no information about the three.

Families of hostages who have not been released are still waiting in desperation, calling on the government to bring their loved ones home.

They hear reports from the families of recently freed hostages that conditions are difficult and worry their loved ones do not have sufficient food and water. They plead with the Red Cross to bring their relatives badly needed medicine. They agonize as mere crumbs of information about their relatives surface.

Sharone Lifschitz, whose mother was freed in October, heard this week that a returned hostage had seen her father, 83-year-old Oded Lifshitz, in captivity. Her father, who spells the family name differently, was last seen shot while militants carted him off to Gaza.

She says the news was a “ray of light” but that she wonders if it’s still true.

“My father is ill, is frail. He needs medicine,” she said. “I don’t know how long he can survive in such harsh conditions.”

She said the return of women and children hostages has been bittersweet as their husbands and fathers remain in captivity. The idea that children would be able to recover from captivity while their fathers remain hostages was “unthinkable,” she added.

LITTLE INFO ON HOSTAGES WHO DIED IN CAPTIVITY

As the cease-fire waned, the military said Friday that four hostages were reported to have died in captivity, including the oldest person held hostage.

All the four, 56-year old Maya Goren, 86-year old Arye Zalmanovich, 54-year-old Ronan Engel, and 75-year-old Eliyahu Margalit, were from Kibbutz Nir Oz. The kibbutz was devastated in the attack, with roughly a quarter of its people killed or kidnapped.

On Thursday, the military announced the death of Ofir Tzarfati, another Israeli believed to have been held hostage. Two other hostages have died in Hamas captivity since Oct. 7, according to the military.

Officials have said little about how the deaths were determined but the army has said it has collected valuable information from the returned hostages.

Zalmanovich, a father of two and grandfather of five, was a founder of Kibbutz Nir Oz, a statement from the missing families group said. Goren was a mother of four and a kindergarten teacher for the kibbutz. Her husband was killed by Hamas militants on Oct. 7.

Engel, a father of three, was a photographer and volunteer paramedic whose wife and two daughters were released from Gaza this week, the group said.

The group did not immediately release information on Margalit.

GLIMPSES OF HOSTAGES RELEASED

During the cease-fire, some 110 hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza were returned to their families, Israel’s government said Friday. They include 86 Israeli citizens and 24 foreign nationals, most of them Thais.

The returnees have mostly appeared in stable health condition, able to walk and speak normally though many lost weight in captivity. One 84-year-old hostage returned in critical condition after not receiving proper medical care, doctors said. Another came back on crutches.

Families have greeted the return of their loved ones with joy and excitement, but doctors have warned of the psychological toll of captivity and say they face a long road to recovery.

There have been no in-depth stories of the hostages’ ordeal or captivity as the government has urged those released, their families and the media not to make public details of their time as prisoners to help ensure the safety of those still being held.

US Vice President Kamala Harris, in a meeting with the president of Egypt, said “under no circumstances [would] the United States permit the forced relocation of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank, the besiegement of Gaza, or the redrawing of the borders of Gaza”.

There is a story, published by Seymour Hersh and picked up by Russian media, that Ukrainian General Valerii Zaluzhny and Russian General Valery Gerasimov are secretly negotiating a deal that could potentially end the Ukraine war.

The story is supported by “anonymous” sources, allegedly in the US intelligence establishment. The question is: Is the report true?  

The Russian report on the Hersh story has disappeared.

What is true is that the relationship between Zaluzhny, the overall commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, and Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, is very bad.  So bad, in fact, that Zaluzhny did not show up on the last day of November for a meeting between Zelensky and his generals.  On top of that, Zelensky is reported to have ordered Ukraine’s regional governors not to speak with Zaluzhny.

Given the estrangement between Zelensky and Zaluzhny, anything that Zaluzhny might or could negotiate should run into a Kiev brick wall.  Zelensky has made it clear that the Ukrainian government will not – nor , legally, can it (because of legislation prohibiting it) – negotiate with Moscow.

Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny, pictured above, told Time magazine last year that when studying military doctrine he had read all the publications of Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, General Valery Gerasimov, 17 years his senior. Photo: Front News

The Russian papers, following Hersh, say there are two broad conditions for a deal between the generals.  The first is at least some kind of recognition by Ukraine of Russian control of the territory it presently occupies. The second, which seems altogether impossible, is that Russia would not object to Ukraine joining NATO provided there are no NATO bases in Ukraine.

Russian General Valerry Gerasimov. Photo: Moscow Times

The first idea on territory is consistent with a trial balloon that Zaluzhny floated some months ago in two different ways.  The first was his hint that Ukraine could live without the territories Russia is occupying. The second was that to best preserve Ukraine it would be wise for Ukraine’s army to pull back from the line of contact and set up strong defense perimeters. 

Zaluzhny’s idea was to stop the bleeding down of Ukraine’s army and to prepare for the future.  Ironically, Zelensky is now saying the same thing when it comes to the disposition of Ukraine’s military forces.

Whatever Zaluzhny and Zelensky say about the war, the fighting continues in earnest along the line of contract stretching from north to south in the east, and across the south all the way to the little bridgehead at Krynki, not far from Kherson.

It is likewise true that the Russians are advancing, especially in Avdiivka where the Russians recently made important territorial gains, in the area around Bakhmut, in Kupyansk and Liman and elsewhere.

There is no sign suggesting either that Russia slowing its current operation or that Ukraine is pulling back forces. In fact, Ukraine is trying to redeploy and rotate troops in the main areas of contact.

That throws a lot of cold water on the notion that any deal is in the offing.

In fact, the idea that Russia would accept a NATO presence in Ukraine as part of a deal is one that would require quite political agreements that would have to include NATO in any deal. NATO is not talking in a way that suggests anyone has tried to bring the NATO security alliance into a dialog.

The continued fighting and Russian gains do not mean that Ukraine will not pull back or that Russia will stop pushing forward. However, they do mean that if there are talks going on they are not at a stage that is satisfactory to either side – meaning there are no battlefield gestures.

One key indicator is the bad reception that Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, received at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s high-level meeting in Northern Macedonia this week. There are several items coming from that meeting that require attention.

First off, this is the first time since the start of the Russian “Special Military Operation” that Russia’s foreign minister traveled to a NATO country (a visit to the United Nations in New York actually is not technically a visit to the United States).  To get there Lavrov’s aircraft was denied overflight permission by Bulgaria, so his plane flew over Turkey and Greece instead. That snub hardly indicates any peace process.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the 30th OSCE Ministerial Meeting in Skopje. Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service

Secondly, the OSCE was part of both the 2014 and 2015 Minsk Agreements that sought to end the crisis in Ukraine. The OSCE was to supervise the agreement, deal with violations, and help with implementation. The Northern Macedonia meeting has destroyed OSCE credibility as a peace partner, which could have been important in a final deal.

Thirdly, Lavrov poured a lot of hot water on any peace deal. “We aren’t seeing any signals from Kiev or its masters about their readiness to seek any kind of political settlement,” Lavrov told reporters at the security conference. “We see no reason to review our goals.”

It is always possible that Lavrov has not been briefed on the meeting or meetings involving Gerasimov and Zaluzhny, assuming they have really taken place. (Not only can we not be sure, but no one can yet say where they would have been conducted.)

Another theory is that Seymour Hersh has been sold a bill of goods, or duped, take your choice.

If Zaluzhny has become an impediment to the US effort to support Ukraine and push more arms into Zelensky’s hands, then how do you trash him?  You do it by floating the idea he is secretly negotiating with the enemy. The usual word for that is “traitor.”  That would explain the Russian news reports on Hersh’s Substack report, since the Russians would be happy to undermine the Kiev regime.

Stephen Bryen, who served as staff director of the Near East Subcommittee of theUS Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as a deputy undersecretary of defense

for policy, currently is a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy and the Yorktown Institute.

This article was originally published on his Weapons and Security Substack. It is republished with kind permission.

Ущемление прав квир-людей, неизбежное после чудовищного решения Верховного суда о признании «экстремистским» «Международного общественного движения ЛГБТ», вовсе не новация путинского режима. Преследованием неугодных по признаку сексуальной идентичности веками занималось не только российское государство, но и многие западные страны. И если в последних ситуация с правами ЛГБТК+ в целом улучшается, то Россия, напротив, идет по пути ужесточения наказания за «неправильную», по мнению властей, сексуальность. Если посмотреть на российские законы, направленные на борьбу с квир-людьми, за последние 200 лет, получится наглядная картина: на протяжении всего этого времени власти практически беспрерывно дискриминировали ЛГБТК+, ломая жизни ни в чем не повинных людей. Но даже на общем историческом фоне угроза, созданная последним решением Верховного суда, выглядит беспрецедентно пугающе.

На протяжении последних 200 лет гомофобия в России была частью официальной идеологии и государственной политики: квир-людей преследовали по закону. Периоды «оттепели» за это время суммарно составляют чуть больше 20 лет, они пришлись на 1920-е и 1990-е. В эти исторические эпохи ЛГБТК-людям жилось сравнительно легче, хотя любая сексуальная идентичность за пределами «традиционной» оставалась глубоко стигматизированной.

Важно отметить, что нынешнее ужесточение законодательства открывает для властей возможность наказывать ЛГБТК-людей даже более сурово, чем это было в Российской империи и СССР.

Хотя на протяжении всего этого периода уголовному преследованию подвергались в первую очередь мужчины, женщины также страдали от реальных репрессий — например, становились жертвами карательной психиатрии.

В этом тексте цитируются оскорбительные формулировки, которые использовались властями в законодательстве в разные периоды времени для того, чтобы дополнительно стигматизировать ЛГБТК-людей.

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Свод законов 1832 года карал «мужеложество» ссылкой в Сибирь на пять лет. С 1845-го «изобличенного в противоестественном пороке мужеложства» лишали имущества и прав, а также свободы на срок от четырех до пяти лет.

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Уголовное уложение 1903 года смягчило наказание. Статья 516 карала «мужеложество» тюремным заключением на срок от трех месяцев до одного года.

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После Октябрьской революции за «мужеложество» фактически уже не наказывали. В первом проекте Советского уголовного уложения, разработанном в марте 1918 года, остались почти все нормы Уголовного уложения 1903-го, но статью о «мужеложестве» оттуда исключили.

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Первый Уголовный кодекс РСФСР официально декриминализовал однополые отношения мужчин. Они не считались преступными и в новой редакции Уголовного кодекса РСФСР, принятой в 1926 году.

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В Уголовный кодекс РСФСР добавили статью 154-а. Добровольное «половое сношение мужчины с мужчиной (мужеложство)» стало караться лишением свободы на срок от трех до пяти лет.

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В новом Уголовном кодексе РСФСР статья «мужеложество» получила номер 121. Неизменным остался максимальный срок заключения, но была отменена нижняя граница наказания.

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Статью 121 в Уголовном кодексе РСФСР изменили после того, как Совет Европы поставил условием вступления страны в организацию приведение российского законодательства в соответствие с европейским. Новая редакция отменила наказание за добровольное «мужеложство». Не появилось оно и в Уголовном кодексе РФ, принятом в 1996 году.

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Рязанская областная дума первой в России запретила «публичные действия, направленные на пропаганду гомосексуализма (мужеложства и лесбиянства) среди несовершеннолетних». Максимальный штраф для граждан составлял две тысячи рублей, для юридических лиц — 20 тысяч. Позже аналогичные законы приняты в Архангельской, Костромской, Магаданской, Новосибирской, Самарской, Владимирской, Калининградской и Свердловской областях, Краснодарском крае, Башкирии, Дагестане и Санкт-Петербурге.

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В России запретили «пропаганду нетрадиционных сексуальных отношений» среди несовершеннолетних. Новая статья 6.21 Кодекса об административных правонарушениях РФ предусматривала штрафы до 100 тысяч рублей для граждан и до миллиона рублей для юридических лиц.

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Власти ввели полный запрет «пропаганды нетрадиционных сексуальных отношений», в том числе среди взрослых. Максимальный штраф для граждан вырос до 400 тысяч рублей, для компаний — до 5 миллионов рублей.

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Вышел закон, отменяющий форму справки 087/у, которая позволяла изменить гендерный маркер в свидетельстве о рождении и использовать «смену пола» как основание для получения нового паспорта. Также были запрещены «медицинские вмешательства, направленные на смену пола человека» (то есть оказание гендерно-аффирмативной медицинской помощи). Cправка 087/у действовала с 2017 года. В период с конца 2017-го по лето 2023-го в России были одни из наиболее комфортных условий трансгендерного перехода в Европе. Теперь же трансгендерные люди в России лишены доступа к необходимым медикаментам и самой процедуре медицинского и юридического перехода.

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Несуществующее «Международное общественное движение ЛГБТ» объявлено Верховным судом РФ «экстремистской организацией». После вступления решения суда в силу «рядовым участникам» такого «движения» будет грозить до шести лет лишения свободы, «организаторам» — до 10 лет.