Gaza War: Hamas Says No Hostage Will Come Out “Alive” Without “Negotiations”

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement in power in Gaza, warned on Sunday that none of the hostages kidnapped in the Oct. 7 attack and still being held would emerge “alive” without negotiations and without “fulfilling the demands” of the Palestinian movement.

“Neither the fascist enemy and his arrogant leadership nor his supporters will be able to return their prisoners alive without exchange and negotiations, and without meeting the demands of the resistance,” spokesman Abu Obeida said in the video. Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement.

Before it collapsed on December 1, a week-long truce had allowed for the release of 105 hostages held in the Gaza Strip, including 80 Israeli hostages exchanged for 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

Efforts ‘continue’, Doha assures

Qatar, which mediated between Hamas and Israel, indicated that efforts were continuing to broker a new truce and free more hostages, while stressing that the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip was “narrowing the prospects” for success.

Israel, which has never published the list, indicated that 137 hostages were still being held in the Gaza Strip, where its army is waging an all-out offensive marked, in particular, by intense Israeli shelling – from the air, sea and sky. a small, overpopulated area ruled by Hamas since 2007.

Some 240 hostages were forcibly taken into the Gaza Strip by Palestinian militants in an unprecedented Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

Abu Obeida confirmed that the fight will continue against Israeli forces, whose military operations in the Gaza Strip have already led to the deaths of nearly 18,000 people, mostly women, children and teenagers, according to the Hamas Health Ministry.

“We have no choice but to fight this barbaric occupier in every neighborhood, street and alley,” he said. — The Holocaust that the enemy is committing is aimed at breaking the strength of our resistance (…), but we are waging a sacred struggle. battle on our land.”