5/27/2024–|Last updated: 5/27/202411:42 PM (Mecca time)
The Israeli Broadcasting Authority said that the negotiating team will deliver to the mediators – tomorrow, Tuesday – a proposal approved by the War Council to conclude a prisoner exchange deal, while the leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Osama Hamdan, reiterated that Israel will not return its prisoners held by the resistance in the Gaza Strip except by submitting to the conditions of the resistance. The Palestinian Authority submitted it to mediators in Qatar and Egypt.
Minister of the War Council, Gadi Eisenkot, said – in an interview with the Israeli Channel 12 – that there is complete agreement among the members of the Council on the necessity of concluding an exchange deal.
According to Channel 12, Eisenkot said that the Hamas movement is restoring its strength, but concluding an exchange deal with it is a strategic necessity, with a ceasefire as necessary, as he put it.
Eisenkot stressed that Israel has not been able, up to this point, to destroy “Hamas’s authoritarian capacity” and that the concept of “victory” is achieving the goals of the war and improving the strategic situation of the State of Israel over time, as he put it.
The Minister of the War Council also accused the members of the mini-ministerial council of not doing their part regarding the exchange deal.
For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed – in a speech before the Knesset today – that he will not stop the war on the Gaza Strip and that he is not ready to do so until victory is achieved, as he put it.
“There is no return of the prisoners without submitting to our conditions.”
For his part, Hamas leader Osama Hamdan denied receiving any confirmation from the mediators regarding a new prisoner exchange deal that Israel claimed to have drafted.
Hamdan reiterated that Israel will not recover its prisoners except by submitting to the conditions of the Palestinian resistance that it presented to the mediators in Qatar and Egypt, stressing that the resistance did not receive anything from the mediators.
He said that continuing the aggression “means losing the lives of more prisoners in the Israeli bombing,” and stressed that procrastination in the negotiations “means that the Israeli prisoners will return as nothing but corpses and may never return.”
Hamdan added, “What is clearly required is to stop the aggression permanently and completely in the entire Gaza Strip, and not in Rafah alone, and this is the fulcrum and starting point.”
He also said that the Israelis’ talk about a new proposal “is nothing but an attempt to evade the decision of the International Court of Justice, evade the repercussions of the request of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, and buy time to continue the massacres in Gaza.”
Hamdan added, “We agreed to an initiative presented by the mediators after the occupation approved it, and therefore there will not be any negotiation before implementing what was agreed upon, namely stopping the aggression, withdrawing the occupation forces, returning the displaced, and starting reconstruction according to a clear plan, and the exchange of prisoners must be according to a clear plan.”
He also said that any attempt to exchange prisoners without these guarantees “will not succeed,” stressing that the region “will not witness any stability as long as Israel remains there.”
Hamdan also reiterated that the resistance factions continue to confront the occupation army on all fronts of the fighting, and said that the resistance is managing the Al-Aqsa flood battle with all strength and ability, stressing that committing more massacres throughout the sector “will not bring any pressure to the resistance.”
It is noteworthy that the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation had claimed the day before yesterday that the head of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, David Barnea, met in the French capital, last Friday, with the Director of the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), William Burns, and the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani. He presented to them a new proposal for a prisoner exchange deal drawn up by the Israeli negotiating team.
The Israeli authority quoted what it described as an informed Israeli source, claiming that the aforementioned meeting during which it was agreed to resume deal negotiations this week, while Hamas denied this, and no confirmation of this was issued by Doha or the American side.