This is simply not true.
There were talks about up to 15 hostages, of 239 in demand for 4 days of ceasefire. Hamas needs this ceasefire desperately to regroup and assess the damages. The chaos now serves Israel well and apparently it puts much more pressure on Hamas. The ground invasion proves very effective. Maybe as Hamas becomes more desperate the "price" for the hostages will drop. Alternatively, if Israel will allow them to regroup, the war will take significantly more time because it will be much harder to eradicate them. Maybe the Israelis know where the hostages are held and after a ceasefire the hostages will be transferred to a different hideout, or smuggled via the tunnels to Egypt and from there to who knows where.
No. It should be minimalistic by default. If you want to add a tail just grab one from the AUR.