A woman walks past posters of hostages kidnapped during the deadly October 7 attack by Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, December 16, 2024. File picture: Reuters, Stoyan Nenov
By James Mackenzie and Nidal Al-Mughrabi
JERUSALEM/CAIRO - Hamas stood by its demand on Tuesday that Israel fully end its assault on Gaza under any deal to release hostages, and said US President-elect Donald Trump was rash to say there would be “hell to pay” unless they go free by his January 20 inauguration.
Officials from the Islamist group and Israel have been holding talks with Qatari and Egyptian mediators in the most intensive effort for months to reach a ceasefire in Gaza.
The outgoing US administration has called for a final push for a deal before Joe Biden leaves office, and many in the region now view Trump's inauguration as an unofficial deadline.
But with the clock ticking, both sides accuse the other of blocking a deal by adhering to conditions that torpedoed all previous peace efforts for more than a year.
Hamas says it will free its remaining hostages only if Israel agrees to end the war and withdraw all its troops from Gaza. Israel says it will not end the war until Hamas is dismantled and all hostages are free.
"Hamas is the only obstacle to the release of the hostages," the director general of Israel's foreign ministry, Eden Bar Tal, told a briefing with reporters, saying Israel was fully committed to reaching a deal.
Hamas official Osama Hamdan, who held a news conference in Algiers, said Israel was to blame for undermining all efforts to reach a deal.
While he said he would not give details about the latest round of negotiations, he reiterated the Hamas conditions of "a complete end to the aggression and a full withdrawal from lands the occupation invaded".
Commenting on Trump's threat that there would be "hell to pay" unless all hostages were freed before the inauguration, Hamdan said: "I think the US president must make more disciplined and diplomatic statements."
Israel has sent a team of mid-ranking officials to Qatar for talks brokered by Qatari and Egyptian mediators. Some Arabic media reports said David Barnea, the head of Mossad, who has been leading negotiations, was expected to join them. The Israeli prime minister's office did not comment.
In one notable step towards a deal, a Hamas official told Reuters on Sunday the group had cleared a list submitted by Israel of 34 hostages who could be freed in the initial phase of a truce, alongside Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
The list included female Israeli soldiers, plus elderly, female and minor-aged civilians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel had so far received no confirmation about whether those on its list were still alive.
ISRAEL KEEPS UP AIRSTRIKES
Nearly 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's assault on Gaza, according to health officials in the enclave. The assault was launched after Hamas fighters stormed Israeli territory in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israeli military strikes killed at least 24 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, medics said, as the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory urged international donors to immediately provide fuel to run generators and maintain medical services.
One of those strikes killed four people in a house in Gaza City and six were killed in separate strikes across the enclave, medics said.
Later on Tuesday, an Israeli strike on a tent in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip killed four children and eight Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Jabalia in the north, medics said.
Additionally, an Israeli strike on a car in Khan Younis killed two people, medics and civil emergency service officials said.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on those strikes.
It said 240 Palestinians its forces had detained in a raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza last month had provided "substantial intelligence".
The military released footage of the interrogation of a purported Hamas militant who detailed how militants "operated from the hospital area" and transferred weapons to and from it.
Hamas and the Gaza health ministry deny any armed presence at the hospital.
- REUTERS