Terror group Hamas is unwilling to negotiate a prisoner exchange with Israel during hostilities, a member of Hamas’ political office in Qatar said on Monday.
“The military operation is still going on… so there is currently no chance for negotiations on the issue of prisoners or anything else,” Husam Badran, a Hamas official, told AFP from Doha.
“Our mission now is to make every effort to prevent the occupation from continuing to carry out massacres against our people in Gaza, directly targeting the homes of civilians,” he added.
In response to Israeli attacks in Gaza carried out without warning, Hamas has threatened to begin executing Israeli hostages.
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Hamas terrorists carried out a massacre of Israeli civilians in southern communities and at a music festival on Saturday, taking over 100 people hostage, including children, women and the elderly. The terrorist group also killed dozens of soldiers and says it is holding high-ranking military officials captive.
“From this hour, any attack on our people in the safety of their homes will be punished without warning with the execution of civilian hostages, broadcast by video and sound,” said the spokesman, who goes by the pseudonym “Nom de Guerre Abu.” Obaida.
During its operations in Gaza, Israel has frequently warned civilians in the Gaza Strip to evacuate buildings targeted for attacks in order to minimize civilian casualties.
“There will be no negotiations on the issue of prisoners under fire,” Obaida said.
“We are ready to continue the campaign for a very long time. We are sure that our young people in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Arab Israelis value every rocket, every gun, every knife and every stone,” Obaida said.
Israel has said it is working to release people kidnapped when Hamas terrorists stormed the Gaza border on Saturday, killing people in surrounding communities and towns.
An informed source told AFP that Qatar is at the forefront of negotiating a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas following the Palestinian group’s shock attack on the Gaza border.
No further details emerged from discussions about the release of Israelis kidnapped during the terrorist group’s invasion of Israel.
An Israeli official denied a report that claimed Qatari-brokered negotiations were underway for a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas, saying “there are no negotiations” on the release of hostages.
More than 130 people are believed to have been kidnapped from Israel and taken to Gaza by terrorists who invaded on Saturday. The prisoners include women, children and the elderly. Hamas has claimed to be holding 100 hostages and Palestinian Islamic Jihad said it is holding 30 hostages. Israel has yet to confirm the exact number of those detained.
Hamas Political Bureau member Husam Badran, center, speaks at the Israel-Gaza border east of Gaza City, Aug. 3, 2018. (AFP/MAHMUD HAMS)
IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on Monday that the army had “full details” about everyone captured by the terror group.
“So far we have notified 30 families. “Once we complete the notification of families, the number of hostages in Gaza will be made available to the public,” he said.
Israel has decided that its attacks on terror targets in Gaza will be carried out with great force and scale, even at the cost of harming Israelis held captive in Gaza, a senior government source told reporters.
The source clarified that if Israel has accurate intelligence information about the whereabouts of Israeli prisoners, it will of course refrain from attacking that particular location. But as long as such information is not available, all Hamas targets will be attacked.
More than 900 people have been killed in Israel since the surprise attack. At least 560 people were killed on the Gaza side after Israel launched airstrikes in response to the Hamas invasion.
Qatar has hosted a Hamas political office for more than a decade and is one of the group’s key supporters.
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh released a video message from Qatar on Saturday, broadcast on the terror group’s Al-Aqsa television channel, in which he said they were “on the verge of a great victory” and called for the release of Palestinian prisoners.
On Sunday, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani held a phone call with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and said Qatar was making “all its diplomatic efforts with various concerned parties” to de-escalate the conflict.