Ten million dollars to pay back the hostages in their homes: Israeli businessmen offer a fee trying to convince the residents of its Strip Gaza to release the dozens of people held in the Palestinian enclave for more than a year.

Its former president and CEO SodaStream Daniel Birnbaum told AFP yesterday that he had received hundreds of phone calls after announcing in X that he would offer $100,000 to “anyone in Gaza who delivers an Israeli hostage alive.”

His offer is valid until midnight tomorrow, Wednesday.

Of the phone calls, “10 to 20 may be genuine.” The Israeli authorities were informed about them in order to confirm the information, explained Birnbaum. He added that the Palestinians who called “were more interested in getting out (of Gaza) than in money.”

“It is impossible with so many hostages for the people in Gaza to keep to themselves the information” about where they are being held, he stressed, assuring that he was addressing “the people of Gaza and not to Hamas. There are certainly civilians who say ‘enough’ and who want to have a normal life.”

“I don’t expect to be able to bring back all the people, but I will be happy if we manage to bring back even one hostage,” he stressed.

Birnbaum said he “did not ask for permission” from the Israeli government. “The pay has to come from the private sector, we’ll see if it works. Anyway, everything we have tried so far has not worked”, he estimated.

In its unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,206 people – mostly civilians – according to an AFP count based on official figures, Hamas took 251 hostages.

Of these, 97 are still being held in Gaza, of which 34 are considered dead by the Israeli army.

THE David Hager, American Israeli brokermade a similar offer on Sunday, telling TV network 12 that it has already collected $400,000 through friends.

“Each one offered $100,000,” explained the man, who made a fortune in the US, asking other businessmen to contribute to bring the amount up to $10 million.

“There are people here who work in the technology sector who earn a lot and to them this amount is nothing,” said Hager, who hopes to “return home not one centimeter hostage” although “we know that a large number of them they are dead.”

After the death of the head of Hamas Yahya Sinuarthe Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised on Thursday that Palestinians who lay down their arms and free the hostages will be spared their lives.

Leaflets dropped by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip in the following days read that “whoever lays down his arms and hands over the hostages will be able to leave (Gaza) and live in peace.”

But those calls are unlikely to be heeded, according to Michael Milstein of the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University.

“There could be two or three cases, but we will not see the streets full of people declaring their readiness to accept this proposal,” he said, stressing “that it has been in effect since the first day of the war.”

Muhammad al-Nazar, who fled northern Gaza and took refuge in Khan Younis, said the Israeli proposal would fail.

“We don’t care about the messages the enemy sends us,” the 33-year-old man said, estimating that Israel “will not keep its commitments.”

“Hamas will not release the hostages without a price,” he noted.