CAIRO, April 27. /TASS/. The Palestinian Hamas movement said that Israel shelled one of the places where hostages were being held in the Gaza Strip, the movement’s militant wing, the Izzeddin al-Qassam Brigades group, reported.
The militants said that they were carrying out rescue operations at the site of the attack and were searching for hostages. No information was given as to how many hostages were in the area hit by the shelling.
On January 15, Israel and Hamas agreed to release the hostages held in Gaza and impose a ceasefire in the enclave. The agreement, which includes three phases, entered into force on January 19, with its first phase ending on March 1. It was expected that during the first phase of the agreement the parties would agree to implement the second phase of the ceasefire, but this did not happen. On March 18, the Israeli army resumed fighting in the Gaza Strip, launching massive attacks on the Palestinian enclave and violating a ceasefire reached in January. The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained that the radical Palestinian movement Hamas refused to agree to the proposals put forward at the talks by mediators and US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, saying that the goal of the operation in the enclave was the release of all hostages. The radicals blamed Israel and the US for the resumption of hostilities.
According to the latest Israeli data, Hamas and its allies continue to hold 59 hostages in the Gaza Strip, including Maxim Harkin, a Donbass native whose close relatives have Russian citizenship.