TEL AVIV, January 5. /TASS/. The Gaza-based Palestinian radical group Hamas consenting to Israel’s terms is all what is needed to reach an agreement on liberating hostages held in the Gaza Strip because the main details of the future deal have already been coordinated, Israel’s Channel 12 said, citing its sources.
According to it, one of the main obstacles to concluding the deal is Hamas’ refusal to name the hostages to be released during the first stage. At talks, resumed with Qatar’s mediation, a delegation from Hamas said that the movement needed a week to locate all the hostages, the sources said. They also confirmed the reports that Israel is trying to increase the number of hostages released during the first stage of the deal.
Earlier, the Jerusalem Post claimed that significant progress had been achieved during the talks between Israel and Hamas. Two Israeli officials confirmed to the newspaper that the deal might be reached within a month.
Over the past year, several rounds of talks on releasing the hostages have yielded no result so far. The sides failed to extend the November 2023 agreement on the release of 105 hostages during a week-long ceasefire. According to the Israeli side, 96 out of 251 hostages abducted on October 7, 2023, are still being held in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military has rescued eight hostages and recovered the bodies of 38 people in the past 14 months.
Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when militants from the Gaza-based Palestinian radical group Hamas staged a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip, killing residents of border settlements and seizing more than 240 hostages. 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 declared a state of war readiness; announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians; and began delivering air strikes on the enclave and certain parts of Lebanon and Syria, followed by a ground operation in the enclave. Clashes are underway in the West Bank as well.