NEW YORK, November 3. /TASS/. The radical Palestinian group Hamas is ready for a "complete compromise" deal on the issue of swapping hostages with Israel, Ghazi Hamad, a senior member of Hamas’ political bureau, said in an interview with NBC News.
"We want these people to go home," Hamad said. "And, also, we want our prisoners now to go home. So I think we are ready now to have complete compromise, complete a deal, in order to receive all the hostages, either military or civilians," he explained, adding that Israel must "release all the prisoners from the Israeli detention centers."
The TV channel noted that "the Israelis are sure to reject" this demand. Talking about the conflict in general, the Hamas representative said that the group wants to continue fighting "against the occupation," because it has the "legal right to fight against the occupation" "according to international law."
As for the group’s October 7 attack on Israel, Hamad said that the Hamas militants never intended to kill civilians. "Within our religion in Islam, it is prohibited to harm or to kill any civilians," the official said. "But what happened maybe in the first day that, that when people (the militants - TASS) went inside, and there is a wide area, there’s people, there’s some complication there."
Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 when militants from the Gaza-based Palestinian radical group Hamas staged a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel has announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians, and has begun delivering air strikes on the enclave and certain parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are underway in the West Bank as well. On October 27, IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari said that Israel was expanding the scale of its ground military operation in the Gaza Strip.