It is good that so far, roughly 60 of the estimated 240 hostages held by Hamas have been released. Their captivity sounds horrific — held underground for seven weeks, barely fed, sleeping on chairs, and denied the ability to go to the bathroom for hours; some in need of medical care, including one elderly woman in life-threatening condition — and anything that relieves their suffering is a step in the right direction. But, as some warned, under the terms of the agreement, Hamas now can determine how much longer the pause in fighting continues. Israel agreed that for every ten additional hostages released, its forces would continue the cease-fire for another day.

On paper, this is a good incentive structure designed to maximize the number of hostages released. In practice, this means Hamas can always dangle the potential release of some of the estimated 180 remaining hostages and then drag its feet in actually releasing them. On Saturday, the second round of releases was delayed for about eight hours because Hamas accused Israel of not delivering trucks of humanitarian aid. …

As of 2 a.m. Eastern this morning, the coordinator for the hostages and missing in the Israeli prime minister’s office issued a statement declaring, “Discussions are being held on the list that was received overnight and which is now being evaluated in Israel.” In other words, negotiations with Hamas are ongoing. When the deadline arrives, will the Israelis be willing to get up from the table and restart military operations? Or will there be too much pressure to make more concessions to get at least a few more hostages released?

[I raised that question this morning as well. Hamas certainly hopes to achieve a kind of inertia/paralysis in Israel through ‘hostage chess,’ as Jim calls it. I don’t think the Israelis will play along for more than a day or two, however. — Ed]