In the days following the October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, the terrorist group’s elusive ringleader, Yahya Sinwar, met with a number of hostages who had been captured and forcibly taken into the Gaza Strip. This was according to a report on Monday from Israel’s Channel 12 news, which cited the account of a recently freed hostage who also briefed Israeli security officials. 

It adds a surreal dimension to the hostages’ ordeal and, given that the terrorist mastermind who Israeli officials believe planned the October 7 assault remains at large, will not likely lessen the country’s national trauma even as a fragile truce looks set to be extended by two days. 

According to Channel 12, the short meeting occurred in a tunnel not long after the October attacks in which 3,000 terrorists breached Gaza’s border and began a rampage in which 1,200 people were massacred and more than 240 taken hostage.  

The freed individual said that Sinwar spoke in Hebrew as he told a group of hostages, “Hello, I am Yahya Sinwar. You are the most protected here. Nothing will happen to you.”

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the abductees within earshot of the terror chief were from the Nir Oz kibbutz, which suffered substantial losses on October 7. 

Sinwar is one of Israel’s most wanted men. He learned Hebrew while doing time in an Israeli prison following a conviction in 1989 for organizing the abduction and murder of two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinians he suspected of working with Israel. 

Although he was to serve four life sentences, in 2011 he was released as part of a broader prisoner exchange to return a captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit.

On Tuesday, in the meantime, Israel and Hamas agreed to extend their temporary ceasefire until Wednesday, with another two planned exchanges of Hamas-held hostages for Palestinian malefactors currently imprisoned in Israel. The extension reportedly came following pressure from Egypt and Qatar.

Under a Qatari- and Egyptian-mediated deal last week, Hamas has released 50 Israeli women and children hostages in return for 150 Palestinian detainees released by Israel, with an option to double those numbers if the truce is extended by five days.

There were signs Tuesday that as part of a “new agreement” Hamas could include the release of male hostages and soldiers in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. On Tuesday morning  a Hamas official, Khalil al-Hayya, told Al Jazeera, “We hope … (Israel) abides (by the agreement) in the next two days because we are seeking a new agreement, besides women and children, whereby other categories that we have we can swap.”

Eleven Israeli women and children freed by Hamas entered Israel on Monday night after more than seven weeks in captivity in Gaza in the fourth swap under the original four-day truce. Thirty-three Palestinian prisoners released by Israel arrived early Tuesday in east Jerusalem and Ramallah. 

The deal for two additional days of ceasefire raised hopes among some for further extensions to delay the resumption of the war. Such extensions would presumably allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, which has been battered by weeks of Israeli bombardment and a ground offensive, but also risk allowing some Hamas forces to regroup.

Israel says it remains committed to crushing Hamas’s military capabilities and ending its 16-year rule over Gaza.  It has repeatedly vowed to resume the war with “full force” to destroy Hamas once it’s clear that no more hostages will be freed under the current agreement’s terms. 

An end to the ceasefire would likely mean expanding a ground offensive from northern Gaza, now mainly under Israeli control, to the southern part of the Strip. 

The Biden administration has told Israel that it must avoid “significant further displacement” and mass casualties among Palestinian civilians if it resumes the offensive, and that it must operate with more precision in southern Gaza than it has in the north, according to American officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House.

Secretary Blinken is set to visit the region later this week for the third time since the start of the war, and is expected to press for an extension of the truce as well as the release of more hostages.

He will have a challenging job. On Monday, CNN reported that more than 40 of the hostages taken on October 7 are not being held by Hamas but by Palestinian Islamic Jihad or other groups.