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Middle East conflict

Hamas leader says Israel will get hostages only by meeting group’s demands

The group’s leader Ismail Haniyeh said if Israeli forces are prepared for a long battle, then "Hamas is ready for it"

CAIRO, November 16. /TASS/. Israel will be able to bring back hostages from the Gaza Strip only by meeting Hamas demands, said Ismail Haniyeh, the chairman of the group’s political bureau.

"All the enemy's plans will fail. It will not be able to achieve its goals and it will not return the captives, except at a price determined by the Palestinian resistance," Haniyeh was quoted as saying by Al Jazeera television.

The group’s leader said if Israeli forces are prepared for a long battle, then "Hamas is ready for it." But he called for putting pressure on Israel to "force the enemy to stop its aggression, lift the siege of the enclave and open border crossings to deliver essential goods to Gaza."

Haniyeh urged Arab and Muslim countries to implement the decisions of the recent summit of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation that called for breaking the siege of Gaza and "stopping Israel's aggression."

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 has cast the attack as a response to Israeli actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Israel has declared a complete siege of the Gaza Strip and started a military operation there. Israeli also strikes parts of Lebanon and Syria in retaliation for bombardments originating from these countries. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank.

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Palestine Israel

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