Israeli Army Radio revealed that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government recently sent a senior official to Cairo, as part of its efforts to reach a prisoner exchange deal with Hamas, which insists on stopping the aggression before starting negotiations on this file.
Israeli Army Radio said that an Israeli official, whom it described as senior, visited the Egyptian capital, Cairo, last week, to discuss progress towards concluding a prisoner exchange deal with the Palestinian resistance factions in the Gaza Strip.
For its part, the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation reported that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken spoke with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant about the possibility of proceeding with the “hostage” deal.
Yesterday evening, Saturday, Israeli Channel 12 quoted an Israeli official as saying, “We are in the waiting stage, preparing for days of decision regarding a new exchange deal.”
Israel’s efforts to reach a prisoner exchange deal during a temporary truce come at a time when it is suffering more losses in life and equipment, and the killing of many of its prisoners in the raids it launches on the Gaza Strip.
Today, Sunday, the Israeli army announced that “485 soldiers and officers have been killed since the beginning of the war, including 158 killed since the start of the ground operation” in Gaza in late October.
Stop the aggression first
Hamas and Israel reached a temporary truce last November 4, which lasted for a week and during which they exchanged prisoners of women and children, with Qatari mediation and Egyptian-American support.
However, the Hamas movement currently refuses to negotiate a prisoner exchange before a permanent cessation of the Israeli aggression that has been ongoing for 79 days, which has led – so far – to the martyrdom of more than 20,000 Palestinians, most of whom are women and children.
Yesterday, Saturday, the leader of the movement, Osama Hamdan, said that there is no talk of exchanging prisoners before stopping the Israeli aggression completely and not temporarily.
Osama added that Hamas wants to return the Israeli prisoners and restore the Palestinian prisoners, while the government of Benjamin Netanyahu does not want that.
Israel says that Hamas is still detaining more than 130 Israelis in Gaza, while Hamas stresses that the price for releasing its detainees includes stopping the aggression first, lifting the siege, and emptying thousands of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons.