A senior Hamas official has shared with the BBC a list of 34 hostages the Palestinian group says it is willing to release in the first phase of a potential ceasefire deal with Israel.
It is not clear how many of them are still alive.
Among them are 10 female and 11 elderly male hostages aged between 50 and 85, as well as young children who Hamas has said were killed in the Israeli strike.
A number of hostages that Hamas says are sick are also included in the list.
Reports from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry say Israeli airstrikes killed more than 100 people there over the weekend.
The Israeli prime minister’s office has denied reports that Hamas has provided Israel with a list of hostages.
“The list of hostages published in the media was not handed over to Israel by Hamas, but from Israel to mediators in early July 2024,” he said.
“So far, Israel has not received confirmation or comment from Hamas regarding the status of the hostages in the list.”
Hamas’s decision to release the names of the hostages will be seen by some as an attempt to increase public pressure on the Israeli government.
Ceasefire talks resumed in Doha, Qatar, over the weekend, but talks have yet to make tangible progress.
A senior Hamas official told Reuters news agency that any deal to return Israeli hostages would depend on an agreement for Israel to withdraw from Gaza and a permanent ceasefire or an end to the war.
“However, so far, the task force continues to be stubborn about the agreement on the issues of ceasefire and withdrawal, and there is no step forward,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Previously, Hamas posted a video of 19-year-old Israeli Liri Albag urging his government to make a deal.
She was captured along with six other female soldiers recruited from the Nahal Oz military base on the Gaza border during a Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
That day Hamas-led forces attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and abducting 251 others.
Israel’s military campaign to destroy Hamas has killed at least 45,805 people in Gaza since Saturday, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the area.
The same source says that Israeli airstrikes killed 88 people in Gaza on Saturday itself and on Sunday, Reuters news agency quoted health sources as saying that 17 others died in four separate incidents of Israeli attacks in the area.
Israel’s military said on Sunday that its forces had struck more than 100 “terrorist” positions in the Gaza Strip over the weekend, killing scores of Hamas militants.
Source link
