00:00Yeah, more part of that peace plan that's, as Donald Trump hailed it, is still being fleshed out.
00:22Yet, right now, the guns are silent on day two after the signing. The more bodies to be released in the coming hours, says Hamas, four have been handed over to Israel with the Israelis handing over the bodies of 45 Palestinians to, in return, the International Committee of the Red Cross.
00:52Doing the mediation role in all of this. Emerald Maxwell has more.
01:00Outside the Institute of Forensic Medicine, where the bodies of four deceased hostages were sent for identification Monday, a sign reads sorry in Hebrew.
01:09The military has named two of the victims as Israeli national Gai Iluz and Bipin Joshi, an agricultural student from Nepal.
01:19The names of the other two have not been released at the request of their families.
01:22The jubilation Israelis felt at the return of all the living hostages, as well as the four coffins, is tempered by grief that the remains of 24 hostages are still missing.
01:33I'm very sad that they are still dead, Israeli people there. And we will fight as much as is possible to bring them home.
01:45Retrieval of bodies is as important as, you know, just bringing back the living hostages.
01:53A group representing the hostage families has called it a blatant breach of the truce by Hamas.
02:08But the problem is locating the bodies under the ruins of Gaza's wasteland.
02:14The ICRC, which is helping in the search operation, called it a massive challenge, adding it could take days or weeks and that there was a possibility they'd never be found.
02:24I think that there is clearly a risk that that will take much more time.
02:28What are we telling to the parties is that that should be their top priorities.
02:32And again, not only when it comes to the human remains of hostages, but other human remains.
02:38Israel said until Hamas returns the bodies, it will keep the Rafa crossing closed and restrict aid, accusing the militants of not making significant efforts to retrieve them.
02:49Gaza's civil defense service said 250 bodies had been recovered from under the rubble since the truce began.
02:55The decontamination of sites that may be littered with unexploded ordnance and the difficulty of identifying remains are among the top challenges.
03:05Joining us from Tel Aviv, Yosep Beilin, he's the former Justice Minister of Israel and was key in the back-channel negotiations that led to the 1993 Oslo agreements between Israelis and Palestinians.
03:20Thank you for speaking with us here on France 24.
03:23Thank you for having me.
03:24After watching that report, you know, we saw on Monday the tears of joy of survivors returning and being reunited with their loved ones.
03:33What would you say the mood is where you are today?
03:38Still very emotional.
03:40People are greeting each other without reservations, you know, until yesterday when we were asked, how are you?
03:48Usually I would say, yeah, you know, against the current situation, personally I'm fine, but publicly I'm bad.
04:00You don't have to say these things anymore.
04:03You can say that you are fine.
04:05Are people beginning the job now of processing what happened?
04:11Well, I hope that what will happen today will be a call, a public call for a state inquiry commission.
04:26It is needed.
04:27We must know what really happened.
04:29It was very, very strange.
04:31There was the contrast between the images of reunited families and the scenes inside of the Israeli parliament on Monday.
04:52They were all about Donald Trump.
04:53And then we saw the signing ceremony in Egypt.
04:58What are your thoughts on this 20-point plan and the way it's been presented?
05:04A little bit strange, because the Israelis were not involved, to the best of my knowledge, in molding this paper.
05:21But it was offered to Netanyahu, who apparently suggested some changes, and that's all.
05:27I mean, I'm happy that we have such a paper today, and that the Palestinian Authority is mentioned.
05:38And it proves, again, that the ideas of Netanyahu that he could do without Hamas, without the Palestinian Authority,
05:46as if they are almost the same, are now seen as a very, very big mistake, to say the least.
05:55And also, the Palestinian state or statehood is mentioned, something that he totally rejected in the last years,
06:04although in the past, as you may know, he supported it.
06:08So the paper is important.
06:10It is very general.
06:12We will have to actually deal with it every day and interpret it in the right way.
06:19And there may be some different interpretations.
06:23But generally speaking, I must say that President Trump surprised me with what he suggested.
06:33And he was very, very tough on all the parties, and they were ready to accept it.
06:41They were ready to accept phase one, and he put pressure on them for that.
06:46The phase two, the part that you know well about from your experience of trying to formulate some kind of framework for peaceful coexistence,
06:57that's a lot tougher.
06:59Does it matter the fact that it's all still a bit fuzzy?
07:01Yeah, it matters.
07:05But the fact that it is there, and there is a roadmap, although without dates, towards a Palestinian statehood,
07:16is very, very important, including what is said there about the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip and the commissioning of the Hamas
07:33and moving the Hamas leadership outside of Gaza, they will do whatever they can in order to prevent it.
07:42So we are going to see some clashes or conflicts with Hamas.
07:51But the good news is that President Trump succeeded to bring Turkey into the picture.
08:02And although Turkey is very much anti-Israeli and became also anti-Jewish, speaking about Erdogan,
08:09they are very influential on Hamas.
08:12So once they are in the tent and they are ready to accept all the principles of President Trump,
08:24I believe that they may play a positive role.
08:27Like I presume that they played today when we found out that only four coffins were handed over to Israel.
08:38And now, as you said before, it was changed to eight.
08:42So they may have influence on Hamas, something that the United States doesn't have.
08:50And hindsight is 20-20 in your case.
08:54What advice would you give to the Israeli side to keep this process on track,
09:00particularly if you, as you said at the outset, they weren't involved in it at the beginning?
09:04They don't own this project.
09:06Well, I'm not sure that the current government will accept my advice.
09:14But my advice to the Israelis is to replace their government.
09:20Replace their government.
09:21Is that going to happen anytime soon?
09:23Elections not planned until next year?
09:24Right.
09:27It is less than a year from today.
09:29And it may be even earlier, because, as you know, Netanyahu doesn't have a majority as we speak.
09:37He lost his majority.
09:39So things may change.
09:43Maybe Netanyahu himself will change.
09:46He was in another place years ago.
09:50He supported the Trump plan of the two-state solution in January 2020.
09:56And I think that we, the center-left, should support him if he goes towards a two-state solution
10:07and gives up on his very strange partners from the lunatic right.
10:13Is that what's happening?
10:16Is the opposition offering Benjamin Netanyahu a lifeline to quit his alliance with far-right settlers?
10:25Not exactly.
10:26I mean, the opposition is suggesting him a safety net, which is limited in time.
10:34I suggest that he will get a full year if he goes towards the two-state solution and adopts the Trump plan seriously.
10:50I'm not sure that this will be the decision of the opposition.
10:54So what I can do with some chance of success is to advise the opposition to suggest to him a full year.
11:08You mentioned earlier how Donald Trump surpassed your expectations in forcing us to get to this point.
11:17Trump, who was accused of emboldening the forever war camp when he talked about Gaza and the Riviera project.
11:27That project doesn't exist anymore.
11:29Instead, he's now shaking Mahmoud Abbas's hand like he did on Monday in Egypt.
11:36What changed?
11:37What happened?
11:40Presumably, people told him that it was idiotic.
11:42All right, we'll leave it there.
11:47Josipe Lin, I want to thank you so much for joining us from Tel Aviv.
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