Amid the ongoing talks on the new Gaza ceasfire deal, a senior Hamas official has said “No one has any idea how many hostages are left.” This comment comes as the fate of the remaining 120 hostages is key in the efforts to put an end to Israel’s war against the Palestinian outfit.
Israel launched the war after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which the Palestinian outfit stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people and abducted about 250. The war in Gaza has killed more than 37,100 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Negotiators from the US and Egypt have been trying for months to mediate a ceasefire and free the hostages, more than 100 of whom are believed to remain captive in Gaza.
‘Complete withdrawal from Gaza’
In an interview with CNN, Hamas spokesperson and political bureau member Osama Hamdan admitted that the exact status of these hostages is uncertain. Osama said the Israeli plan that was first publicly announced by US President Joe Biden late last month, did not meet the group’s demands for an end to the war.
Hamdan, speaking from Beirut, Lebanon, said that Hamas needed “a clear position from Israel to accept the ceasefire, a complete withdrawal from Gaza, and let the Palestinians to determine their future by themselves, the reconstruction, the (lifting) of the siege … and we are ready to talk about a fair deal about the prisoners exchange.”
Negotiations over the fresh Gaza ceasefire agreement have faced obstacles, with Hamas reportedly submitting back-to-back changes to the document, prompting frustration from the US. While some modifications were considered feasible, others exceeded previous positions, complicating the negotiation process.
On Thursday, Biden said he doesn’t expect to reach a cease-fire deal for Gaza in the near future, as both warring sides have not embraced an American-backed proposal with global support. He said international leaders at the Group of Seven summit in Italy had discussed the cease-fire, but when asked by reporters if a truce deal wound be reached soon, Biden replied simply, “No,” adding, “I haven’t lost hope.”
A day earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that mediators would keep trying to close an elusive cease-fire deal after Hamas proposed numerous changes to a US-backed plan, some of which he said were “workable” and some not. “Hamas has proposed numerous changes to the proposal that was on the table. … Some of the changes are workable. Some are not,” Blinken told reporters in Qatar. “I believe that they (the differences) are bridgeable, but that doesn’t mean they will be bridged because ultimately Hamas has to decide.”
(With agency inputs)
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