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Diplomatic efforts continue to try to broker deals both to allow aid into Gaza and to secure the release of the 199 people confirmed by the Israeli military to have been abducted by Hamas and taken to the Gaza Strip. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has said intense talks to free the hostages in Gaza are making progress. He was speaking after a video was released by Hamas militants, showing a young French-Israeli woman.

Rachel Briggs, a leading expert on hostage situations, told Newsday that the 'hostages can be used as a "bargaining chip... as trade for something in return." She says that mass hostage taking including women and children is very rare. She says that Hamas has likely calculated "that the women and children have higher value.''

The families of the hostages are probably in what she calls ''a state of terror'' and likely ''not sleeping or eating... but it's important not to lose hope."

(Picture: Keren Shem, the mother of French-Israeli woman Mia Shem, held hostage by Hamas militants in Gaza, holding a large photograph of her daughter as she speaks to the press in Tel Aviv on October 17, 2023. Credit: Gil Cohen-Magen / AFP via Getty Images)

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