The Israeli hostages held by Hamas and other armed factions were always going to be the Achilles heel of the unprecedentedly deadly onslaught visited on Gaza by Benjamin Netanyahu’s forces following Hamas’s 7 October attack.

Since the Israeli Prime Minister’s outright rejection a fortnight ago of what he called the “delusional” terms set by Hamas for a ceasefire and hostage release deal, the anguish felt by the families of those kidnapped and held for more than four months has only intensified.

Most will now be fervently hoping – like almost all Gazans – that the albeit cautious and heavily qualified optimism now emerging from talks just held in Paris between the US, Israel, Qatar and Egypt will lead to fruitful negotiations in Cairo involving Hamas itself.

Time is limited because the beginning of Ramadan on 10 March is the deadline set by Israel’s war cabinet for an invasion of Rafah, where more than 1.4m Palestinians are now taking refuge. Most saliently for the families, more hostages could die. Israel has already acknowledged that 30 out of the 130 remaining in Gaza have been killed; the real figure may be higher.

There are many variables of course. But a........

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