By EFE
Dec 25, 2023, 12:48 PM EST
Islamic Jihad reiterated its rejection of any exchange of prisoners and hostages without first permanently stopping Israel’s attacks against the Gaza Strip and while Israeli forces remain in the Palestinian enclave, the organization reported tonight.
“The issue of exchanging prisoners and detainees is not discussed unless the aggression against Gaza stops and Israeli forces withdraw,” said Islamic Jihad Undersecretary General Mohamed al Hindi after a meeting with the General Service. of Egyptian Intelligence in Cairo.
At the meeting, the delegation of this Palestinian movement, headed by the secretary general, Ziad Najalah, evaluated different positions and discussed Egypt’s proposal, although their consideration of it did not go beyond.
Egypt, a mediating country in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, proposed to the Islamist group a three-pronged plan that includes a ceasefire of “two or three weeks” in exchange for the release of 40 Israeli hostages, forming a technocratic government in the Strip and achieve a complete cessation of the war, a comprehensive agreement on the exchange of prisoners and hostages between both sides and Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza.
Likewise, Al Hindi insisted that “the future of Gaza cannot be separated from the future of the West Bank” and stated that “the resistance has capabilities that allow it to continue fighting for a long period, longer than everyone expects.”
Furthermore, he noted that “Israeli leaders are promoting populist statements with the aim of rallying the far right around them,” although “those statements will not succeed and will be in vain.”
According to Palestinian diplomatic sources, the Hamas delegation will discuss in Qatar, where its political office is located, the details of this proposal that Egypt also presented to Islamic Jihad and whose assessment has not emerged so far.
Islamic Jihad is a radical Palestinian organization considered terrorist by Israel, the United States and the European Union, which operates in Gaza, the West Bank and the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
Unlike other Palestinian factions, Islamic Jihad refuses to participate in political peace processes and insists that military victory over Israel is the only viable means to achieve its ultimate goal: the establishment of a state that extends throughout of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.
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