Hamas backed its demand on Tuesday Israel completely end his assault Gaza under any agreement to release hostages, and said the president-elect of the United States Donald Trump it was unwise to say “all hell will break loose” unless they get rid of it by his inauguration on January 20th.
Officials of the Islamist group and Israel held talks with Qatari and Egyptian mediators in the most intense effort for months to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and secure the release of 100 hostages who remain captive in Gaza.
The outgoing US administration has called for a final push for a deal before Joe Biden leaves office, and many in the region now see Trump’s inauguration as an unofficial deadline.
“If (the hostages are) not returned by the time I get into office, all hell will break loose in the Middle East,” Trump said Tuesday at a press conference at his Mar-a- Lake in Florida.
“It’s not going to be good for Hamas, and it’s not going to be good, frankly, for anybody.”
Trump sent his incoming special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, to Qatar this week for additional talks. Witkoff said real progress has been made.
“The red lines that he’s put out — that’s driving this negotiation,” Witkoff told reporters as he stood next to Trump.
But with the clock ticking, both sides accuse the other of blocking an agreement by adhering to the conditions that have torpedoed all previous peace efforts for more than a year.
Hamas said it would release its remaining hostages only if Israel agreed to end its military offensive and withdraw all its troops from Gaza. Israel says it will not end its assault until Hamas is dismantled and all hostages are free.
“Hamas is the only obstacle to the release of the hostages,” the director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Eden Bar Tal, told a briefing with reporters, saying that Israel was fully committed to reach an agreement.
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Hamas official Osama Hamdan, who held a press conference in Algiers, said Israel was to blame for undermining all efforts to reach an agreement.
While he said he would not give details about the latest round of negotiations, he reiterated Hamas’ conditions of “a complete end to aggression and a complete withdrawal from the lands invaded by the occupation.”
Commenting on Trump’s threat that there would be “hell” to pay unless all the hostages were released before the inauguration, Hamdan said: “I think the president of the United States needs to make more disciplined and diplomatic statements “.
Israel sent a team of middle-class officials to Qatar for talks mediated by Qatari and Egyptian mediators. Some Arab media reports said that David Barnea, the head of Mossad, who led the negotiations, was expected to join them. The Israeli prime minister’s office did not comment.
In a notable step toward a deal, a Hamas official told Reuters on Sunday that the group had cleared a list presented by Israel of 34 hostages who could be freed in the initial phase of a truce, alongside Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
The list included female Israeli soldiers, older women, and minor civilians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel had so far received no confirmation that those on its list were still alive.
Israel continues aerial bombardment in Gaza
Nearly 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza, according to Hamas health officials in the enclave. The assault was launched after Hamas fighters stormed Israeli territory in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli accounts.
Israeli military strikes killed at least 24 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, medics said, as the health ministry in the Hamas territory ordered international donors to immediately provide fuel to run generators and maintain medical services.
One of those attacks killed four people in a house in Gaza City and six were killed in separate attacks across the enclave, medics said.
Later on Tuesday, an Israeli attack on a store in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip killed four children and eight Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Jabalia in the north, medics said.
Also, an Israeli attack on a car in Khan Younis killed two people, medics and civil emergency service officials said.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on those attacks.
It said 240 Palestinians its forces arrested in a raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza last month had provided “substantial intelligence”.
The military released footage of the interrogation of an alleged Hamas militant that detailed how the militants “operated from the hospital area” and transferred weapons to and from him.
Hamas and the Gaza health ministry deny any armed presence in the hospital.
-With additional files from Associated Press
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2025-01-07 21:44:00
