Hamas said on Sunday that it was ready to release 34 Israeli hostages held captive in Gaza during the “first phase” of an agreement with Israel, which for its part stressed that it had still not received a list from the Palestinian movement .
A Hamas official told AFP that the Islamist group had “agreed to release 34 Israeli prisoners from a list provided by Israel in the first phase of a prisoner exchange deal.”
This list, he specified, includes “all women, the sick, children and the elderly” among the Israeli hostages.
“Hamas and the resistance groups need about a week of calm to communicate with the kidnappers and identify the (hostages) dead or alive,” added the official, who requested anonymity.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated in a statement that “contrary to what has been reported, Hamas has still not provided a list of hostages.”
Indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel resumed this weekend in Qatar with a view to an agreement on a ceasefire and the release of hostages held captive in Gaza since the attack of the Palestinian movement on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023.
Despite intense diplomatic efforts led under the aegis of Qatar, Egypt and the United States, no truce has been concluded since that of a week at the end of November 2023, which allowed the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
23 dead according to emergency services
This new round of discussions in Doha comes just over two weeks before the inauguration, on January 20, of American President-elect Donald Trump, who has already put pressure on Hamas.
Among the main sticking points so far have been the permanent nature or not of a ceasefire and the governance of Gaza after the war, Israel categorically opposing Hamas being able to rule the territory again.
| © AFP Women mourn the disappearance of loved ones on January 5, 2025 in Deir el-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip. |
While waiting for a possible agreement, violence has escalated for several days in the Palestinian enclave besieged and devastated by nearly 15 months of war.
Gaza emergency services reported at least 23 dead on Sunday in several Israeli strikes across the territory.
“The (Israeli) occupation is using the false pretext of the presence of fighters to carry out violent airstrikes on homes housing dozens of displaced people,” denounced Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal.
The Israeli army announced that it had “hit more than 100 terrorist targets” and “eliminated dozens of Hamas terrorists” in the space of two days, Friday and Saturday, in Gaza.
Warning to Hezbollah
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened on Wednesday to intensify strikes on Gaza if Hamas continued to fire rockets towards Israel, which said it had been targeted almost daily for more than a week.
On Sunday, on another front, he accused Lebanese Hezbollah of not respecting the terms of the ceasefire agreement which entered into force on November 27, and warned that his country could be “forced to act”.
| © AFP Buildings destroyed in the Gaza Strip on the border with Israel, January 5, 2025 |
The minister argued that Hezbollah fighters had still not withdrawn north of the Litani River, in southern Lebanon, around thirty kilometers from the border, and that this could represent a danger for the Israeli population.
Since the start of the ceasefire, the two camps have accused each other of repeated violations. Hezbollah Secretary General Naïm Qassem warned on Saturday that his movement was ready to respond if Israel continued to violate the agreement.
The war in Gaza was triggered by the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
That day, 251 people were kidnapped. Among them, 96 remain hostages in Gaza, 34 of whom were declared dead by the army.
At least 45,805 people, mainly civilians, were killed in the Israeli military campaign of retaliation in Gaza, according to the latest report on Sunday from the Hamas Ministry of Health.
