The Palestinian Hamas terrorist organization reportedly rejected an Israeli offer Monday for a deal to free the remaining 132 or so hostages still in captivity in Gaza because the proposed agreement did not include a permanent end to Israel’s counteroffensive.
Hamas seized 243 hostages when it invaded Israel in the October 7 terror attack, when it also murdered roughly 1,200 people. An earlier hostage deal saw 110 hostages released over a one-week period in late October; Hamas broke that truce, resuming the war.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hailed a potential agreement on Monday that would have seen a phased release of hostages in return for lengthy pauses in fighting and the release of a large number of Palestinian terror convicts — up to 10,000 terrorists.
But Hamas issued a statement along with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), another terrorist organization in which it said that it would not accept any agreement that did not end the war and include a full Israeli troop pullout from Gaza.
The Jerusalem Post reported:
Hamas rejected a hostage deal drafted in Paris over the weekend because it did not include a permanent ceasefire.
Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) reiterated that Israel must halt its Gaza offensive and withdraw from the Strip before any prisoner exchange takes place, Hamas said in a statement on Monday.
In Washington US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the proposal handed to Qatar, “was a strong one and a compelling one that offers some hope that we can get back to this process, but Hamas will have to make its own decisions.”
The Times of Israel elaborated on the outlines of the agreement Hamas rejected:
According to Channel 12 news, the offer centers around a 45-day pause in the fighting in exchange for 35-40 hostages in the first stage. Some 100-250 Palestinian prisoners would be released for every hostage. This would be followed by further releases in exchange for an extension of the truce, and a larger ratio of Palestinian security prisoner releases for each hostage.
Hamas is holding out for a permanent ceasefire. Israel would regard an end to the war that left Hamas intact in Gaza as a defeat.
Hamas has already broken an agreement to provide evidence that medications sent via Qatar actually reached Israeli hostages.
Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are reportedly near victory in the Hamas stronghold of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, where the leaders of the organization are thought to be hiding.
IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said:
Khan Yunis serves as the Hamas capital in the southern strip. It spans an area of 54 square kilometers, under which a complex and branched underground infrastructure of tens of kilometers has been built. It is a dense area, saturated with population, including villages, agricultural areas, and many neighborhoods. Under the Khan Yunis Brigade, four Hamas battalions operated. In recent weeks, IDF forces have been operating in a focused manner, dismantling the military frameworks of the Hamas battalions. We have already dismantled two battalions in eastern Khan Yunis, and we are now operating in the west. Many commanders have been eliminated, have fled, surrendered, or been arrested, and the remaining terrorists are carrying out unorganized terrorist acts. Throughout Khan Yunis, we have eliminated over 2,000 terrorists above and below ground. In addition, we destroyed significant underground infrastructures, where we found facilities for holding hostages, command centers, weapons, manufacturing infrastructures, and intelligence materials. The 98th division operates in the area with infantry brigades, commando, armor, engineering, special units, and the ISA alongside them.
Shoulder to shoulder in combined action above and underground simultaneously. This is a new method of operation that includes advanced technology with unique components, some of which are in use for the first time. In the past week in west Khan Yunis, we eliminated hundreds of terrorists and detained more than 300 suspects in terrorist activity, taken for interrogation by the security forces. These detained suspects provide us with very valuable intelligence about Hamas infrastructure in Gaza in general and in the Khan Yunis area in particular. We are eliminating and detaining terrorists in tunnels and in their hiding places. In recent days, during an underground maneuver of Yahalom Unit soldiers along with ISA forces, in one of Hamas’s significant tunnels, the soldiers broke through a blast door. Behind the door, hid three Hamas terrorists who surrendered to our forces. An action that took place underground. The terrorists were transferred to ISA interrogation and are providing valuable information for the future. Efforts like this one led to the arrest of terrorists involved in the brutal massacre on October 7, who hid in the Khan Yunis area. Alongside the ground forces’ operational activity, the Air Force carried out hundreds of strikes using aircrafts- on Hamas targets, including military positions, weapons storages, observation posts, and real-time targets that threatened our troops security in the area, and the Air Force struck them.
With the start of the strikes, we opened humanitarian corridors to allow residents to leave the combat area and prevent Hamas from using them as human shields. Although Hamas tries to prevent the residents from leaving, approximately 100,000 residents have already temporarily evacuated from western Khan Yunis alone. Alongside this, we are focusing our efforts on the task of thwarting Hamas launch attempts such as the one that occurred earlier today. We thwarted dozens of rocket launch attempts and will continue this effort.
While Hamas is certainly feeling the pressure of the IDF closing in, families of the Israeli hostages are also growing increasingly worried about the fate of their relatives, and are pressing the Israeli government to make a deal, even one on unfavorable terms.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the 2021 e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now updated with a new foreword. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.