Hamas maintained on Tuesday that any agreement to release hostages would require Israel to fully cease its assault on Gaza, while also dismissing U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s warning of “hell to pay” if hostages were not freed by his January 20 inauguration.
Both Hamas and Israel are engaged in discussions mediated by Qatar and Egypt, marking the most concentrated attempt in months to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza.
The outgoing U.S. administration has urged a final effort to secure a deal before President Joe Biden leaves office, while Trump’s inauguration is widely viewed as an informal deadline for resolution.
Despite these efforts, both sides accuse each other of derailing progress by clinging to conditions that have undermined peace initiatives for over a year.
Hamas insists that hostages will only be released if Israel halts its offensive and withdraws its forces from Gaza.
Conversely, Israel has declared it will not end the war until Hamas is dismantled and all hostages are freed.
“Hamas is the only obstacle to the release of the hostages,” stated Eden Bar Tal, director general of Israel’s foreign ministry, during a press briefing, reiterating Israel’s commitment to a deal.
Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official speaking at a news conference in Algiers, placed the blame on Israel for obstructing negotiation efforts.
While refraining from disclosing specifics about the ongoing talks, he reaffirmed Hamas’s conditions of “a complete end to the aggression and a full withdrawal from lands the occupation invaded.”
Responding to Trump’s statement about dire consequences if hostages are not released, Hamdan said, “I think the U.S. president must make more disciplined and diplomatic statements.”
Israel has dispatched a team of mid-ranking officials to Qatar for mediation talks, with Arabic media suggesting Mossad chief David Barnea might join the discussions.
In a notable development, a Hamas official told on Sunday that the group had approved a list from Israel of 34 hostages to be freed in the initial phase of a truce.
The list reportedly includes female Israeli soldiers, as well as elderly, female, and minor-aged civilians.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has not confirmed whether those listed are still alive.
According to health officials in Gaza, nearly 46,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its assault on the enclave following a Hamas incursion into Israeli territory in October 2023.
That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,200 people and over 250 hostages taken, according to Israeli figures.
On Tuesday, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 24 Palestinians across Gaza, medics reported, as the territory’s health ministry appealed for immediate international assistance to supply fuel for hospital generators and sustain medical services.
Among the casualties were four people killed in a Gaza City house, six in separate strikes elsewhere in the region, and another four children in a tent targeted in Khan Younis.
In Jabalia, eight Palestinians were killed in an airstrike on a house, while a strike on a car in Khan Younis claimed two lives, medics and emergency officials said.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on these strikes but stated that intelligence gathered from 240 Palestinians detained in a raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza last month had been significant.
The military released footage of an alleged Hamas militant describing how fighters “operated from the hospital area” and moved weapons through it.
Hamas and Gaza’s health ministry denied these allegations, rejecting claims of armed presence at the hospital.