Hamas captured about 240 people during Oct. 7 attack (Reuters)
Israeli media said that Tel Aviv is determined to make efforts for the success of negotiations for the release of prisoners held in the Gaza Strip, while Palestinian factions stressed the priority of a comprehensive cessation of the war before talking about exchange deals with Israel.
Israel's Channel 12 quoted private sources as saying that the Israeli government is determined to make every effort to ensure the success of negotiations for the release of prisoners held by the Palestinian resistance, knowing that they will be difficult.
Israel's Channel 13 said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government had made an offer for a deal that included the release of 30 to 40 Israeli detainees held by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in exchange for the release of prominent prisoners, and a partial withdrawal from some areas, with a two-week to a month of calm.
The officials noted that if the deal goes through during the transition to the next phase, Israel could change some military arrangements inside Gaza.
Israeli media said on Wednesday that Tel Aviv had expressed willingness to include high-profile detainees in the next swap, without naming names. Axios also quoted Israeli officials as saying that they had made an offer on a new swap deal and expected a response from Qatari mediators within a few days.
The White House said talks on a new truce in Gaza were very serious and stressed that Washington was pushing for the release of Israeli detainees.
For its part, Hamas announced Thursday, through its Telegram account, that the Palestinian factions have taken a national decision that there will be no talk of prisoners or exchange deals with Israel until after a comprehensive cessation of the war on the Gaza Strip.
According to Israeli statistics, Hamas captured about 240 people during its attack on southern Israel on October 7, dozens of whom exchanged during a 7-day humanitarian truce until the first of December, with Israel, which holds 7800,<> Palestinians, including children and women, in its prisons.
Since October 7, the Israeli occupation army has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, which has left 20,52 Palestinian martyrs and 600,<> wounded, most of them children and women, as well as massive destruction of infrastructure and an unprecedented humanitarian disaster, according to the Gaza authorities and the United Nations.
As part of the truce efforts, AFP quoted a source close to Hamas as saying that Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas' political bureau, was continuing to discuss a "temporary truce" in Cairo, and an Islamic Jihad source said its secretary-general, Ziad al-Nakhaleh, would also travel to Cairo early next week.
Source : Al Jazeera + Agencies