11/25/2024–|Last updated: 11/25/202405:47 AM (Mecca time)
The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation said yesterday, Sunday, that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu missed the opportunity to reach a prisoner exchange agreement with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) last July, to satisfy the Israeli Ministers of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, and Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich.
The authority added that Hamas was ready to release a number of Israeli detainees, without linking this to the condition of a complete ceasefire, last July.
She pointed out that Hamas’s approval at the time was an attempt to link the first and second phases of the ceasefire proposal, related to humanitarian aid.
The commission did not mention further details, but Hamas has repeatedly stressed that it will not release the Israeli detainees except through an agreement that leads to a comprehensive cessation of the genocide that Israel is waging in the Gaza Strip.
The American proposal at the time included three stages: the first included an immediate ceasefire, the release of women, the elderly, and the wounded from Israeli detainees in Gaza, an exchange of prisoners, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from populated areas in Gaza. In addition to increasing humanitarian aid, rebuilding basic services, and returning civilians to their homes throughout the sector, with civil society making the necessary contribution in the field of housing.
Following the agreement of the parties, the second phase requires the release of all remaining prisoners and Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza to end the crisis once and for all.
The third stage included starting the Gaza reconstruction plan for several years and handing over the bodies of Israeli prisoners.
The commission explained that Netanyahu refused to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, and made the Philadelphia (south) and Netzarim (central) axes in the Strip an obstacle to the ceasefire process.
The authority quoted an Israeli source as saying that Netanyahu rejected this deal to satisfy both Ben Gvir and Smotrich, who at the time threatened to withdraw from the government if the deal with Hamas was concluded, and considered this a defeat for Israel.
Prisoner exchange negotiations between Hamas and Israel have reached a faltering stage, as a result of Netanyahu’s insistence on setting new conditions that include the continued occupation of the Netzarim axis in the central Gaza Strip, the Philadelphia axis, and the Rafah crossing (south), and his refusal to stop the war within the framework of any prisoner exchange deal, while Hamas adheres to ending the war. The Israeli army completely withdrew.
The day before yesterday, Saturday, Al-Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Ubaida announced the killing of an Israeli prisoner as a result of the Israeli aggression on the northern Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army estimates the number of detainees remaining in the Gaza Strip at about 97, including 34 that it says are dead, while the Palestinian resistance factions have not announced the number of Israeli prisoners they have, but they have announced several times that some of them were killed as a result of the occupation’s aggression.
It is noteworthy that in November 2023, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) released 81 Israeli prisoners in a temporary humanitarian truce that lasted a week, in exchange for Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza that left more than 149,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and famine that killed dozens of children and the elderly, in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.
