Palestinian group Hamas, locked in a bitter war with Israel, has expressed its willingness to release women and children it holds captive if Israel stops its airstrikes on Gaza, The NBC News reported quoting a senior Hamas official. The report quoted the official saying that the hostages - both foreign and Israeli- could be released within the hour when Israel met its terms. The official claimed that there is no safe place to release them now.
Hamas, however, said that it does not have custody of all the hostages seized in the attack on Israel 10 days ago, a diplomat with knowledge of the talks and a former US diplomat told the news outlet.
Scores of people were taken hostage during Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, when terrorists shot, stabbed or burned to death more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians. The videos of people being taken hostage also surfaced online.
The former US official stated that some of the hostages are being held by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another group based in Gaza, the officials said, while others are held by "random Gaza citizen opportunists," Hamas, which controls Gaza, is trying to gain custody of all of the captives but says it cannot amid continued bombing, the outlet reported quoting sources.
Emphasising that the talks on the fate of the hostages have been going on since "day one", the diplomat explained that earlier Hamas was pressing for an exchange of prisoners "but they have finally accepted that wasn't going to be the case."
The diplomat added that Hamas "appears to have understood that civilians will have to be released without a trade". "Discussions are ongoing and have been more positive recently, but no breakthrough yet."
The terrorist group's condition to release hostages came at a time when an explosion at a hospital in Gaza killed at least 500 people on Tuesday, Reuters said quoting the Hamas-run health ministry sources, sparking outrage. Local authorities blamed Israeli airstrikes, while Israel alleged it was Hamas rockets misfiring.
Yesterday, Hamas released a video of an Israeli woman taken hostage during the October 7 attacks. In the video, the woman's arm is seen wrapped in bandages.
In the video, the 21-year-old woman said she is from Sderot, a small Israeli city near the Gaza border. On the day of the attacks, she was attending the Supernova Sukkot Music Festival on Kibbutz Re'im when Hamas operatives attacked the gathering.
Turkey's top diplomat said Tuesday his country had been in touch with Hamas over some 200 Israeli and foreign hostages it is holding in Gaza, following requests from several governments.
