By The Diary
01 Sep 2024, 19:36 PM EDT
A senior Hamas official said that “some” of the six dead hostages found in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli army “were part of the list of hostages to be released approved by Hamas.”
According to Israeli media, Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin and two Israelis Carmel Gat and Eden Yerushalmi were on a list of hostages to be released during the first phase of a potential ceasefire agreement in Gaza, which has been under negotiation for months.
“Those who kill hostages do not want an agreement”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday (01.09.2024) blamed Hamas, an organization considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, for the lack of a truce agreement and for not holding “real negotiations” since December, hours after the bodies of six hostages were found last night in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.
“Those who kill hostages do not want a deal,” Netanyahu said in a recorded message. Shortly before, representatives of the hostages’ families had asked him to appear publicly and his own defense minister, Yoav Gallant, had urged him to reverse the decision to keep Israeli troops on the dividing line between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, known as the Philadelphia corridor.
“Hamas refused”
Netanyahu said that three months ago, on May 27, Israel reached a deal to release hostages with the full backing of the United States, but that Hamas refused.
“Even after the United States updated the draft agreement on August 16, we agreed and Hamas refused again,” he added.
Hamas, however, accuses Netanyahu of having recently added new demands, such as the permanence of Israeli troops in the Philadelphia corridor – on the border between Gaza and Egypt – and in the Netzarim corridor, an artificial strip created in the war that divides Gaza from north to south.
“Any agreement must include a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the freedom of return of residents to their areas, aid and reconstruction, and a serious exchange agreement (of hostages for prisoners),” Hamas recalled on August 25 after another round of fruitless negotiations.
In recent months, eight hostages have been rescued alive through military operations, compared to 105 captives released in the only (truce) agreement reached in November (2023), the Hostage Families Forum reproached Netanyahu today.
On Saturday evening, August 31, the Israeli army found the bodies of six hostages from the Islamist group Hamas in an underground tunnel in the Rafah area, south of the Gaza Strip. The discovery, which comes amid pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has sparked a wave of reactions from the international community.
The deceased hostages were identified as Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino. They shared that they were killed by Hamas shortly before forces reached them, according to an initial investigation.
With information from Deutsche Welle
Continue reading:
- Who was Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the Israeli-American hostage killed in Gaza?
- What is known about Israel’s discovery of the bodies of six hostages in Gaza?
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