BEIRUT, November 14. /TASS/. Palestinian movement HAMAS is ready to release all women, children and foreign citizens it is currently holding hostage if Israel releases women and children from its prisons and if a ceasefire agreement is reached, a high-ranking member and spokesman of HAMAS said on Tuesday.

"We are ready to release women, children and foreigners at any time, in exchange for the release of women and children, kept in prisons by the occupying government. Naturally, [this will be possible] only when a humanitarian ceasefire is reached, enabling the delivery of aid to all regions of the Gaza Strip without exception," Izzat Al Risheq, a member of the movement’s Political Bureau, and the head of the HAMAS Media Office, wrote on Telegram.

Al Risheq also said that Israel was reluctant to reach an agreement on the issue. In his opinion, the Jewish state was deliberately creating delays in the negotiation process, because it was not interested in having a ceasefire with HAMAS.

The situation in the Middle East sharply escalated following an incursion of Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip into Israel on October 7, accompanied by killings of residents of Israeli settlements near the border and taking more than 200 hostages, including children, women and elderly people. Hamas regards the attack as a response to Israeli actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. Israel has declared a complete siege of the Gaza Strip and has started delivering strikes on that area and parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank.