Sources within terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip told AFP on Sunday that Hamas has ordered them to provide information on the captives they hold for a potential ceasefire-for-hostages deal with Israel.
Hamas told fellow terrorist organizations—including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Popular Resistance Committees—to prepare information, including whether their hostages are alive or dead, AFP cited the sources as saying.
A Hamas source told the agency there had been “intensified contacts” between Hamas and Qatari, Egyptian and Turkish mediators in recent days, and that the terrorist organization expected another round of negotiations with Jerusalem to kick off in Cairo “in the coming days.”
The same source called on the Jewish state to halt the war, saying the presence of Israel Defense Forces troops in the Gaza Strip made it “difficult to reach all the captive groups to know the details of the living and dead prisoners.”
According to official IDF figures, 96 of the 251 hostages who were taken during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led assault remain in Gaza after 425 days.
The Palestinian terrorist group is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the coastal enclave in 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed during “Operation Protective Edge” in 2014.
Jerusalem has pressured Hamas to the extent that a hostages-for-ceasefire deal with the Iranian-backed terrorist organization may be possible, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday.
“There is a chance that this time we will really be able to advance a hostage deal,” Katz said during a visit to soldiers at an Air Force base in central Israel.
On-and-off indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas to renew last year’s hostage release agreement have dragged on for months, with the United States, Egypt, Qatar and others acting as intermediaries.
Early last week, a senior Hamas official told AFP that the terrorist group was sitting tight until global pressure forces Jerusalem to end the war.
“Egypt, Qatar and Turkey are making great efforts to reach an agreement for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange,” said the Hamas official, who was part of a meeting on the topic in Cairo on Sunday, referring to a possible exchange of hostages for Palestinian terrorists jailed in Israel.
“Our Palestinian people are waiting for American and international pressure on [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to stop the war and reach an agreement, as happened in Lebanon,” the official explained.
Reuters cited an internal Hamas document on Dec. 4 as saying that the terrorist group had indications that Israeli security forces were planning the rescue of hostages, similar to the raid that freed Noa Argamani, Andrey Kozlov, Almog Meir Jan and Shlomi Ziv in June.
The confidential Hamas document, dated Nov. 22, tells terrorist operatives to execute hostages if such an operation takes place, and “not to consider any repercussions of following the instructions.”
