On Thursday evening, Qatar presented, on behalf of Hamas, an official list of demands relating to the release of hostages and a cease-fire in the enclave, report several media including Reuters and the Hebrew public television channel Kan 11 .
According to the British news agency Reuters, the Islamist group would be ready to exchange the elderly and sick Israeli hostages, still held in the Palestinian land language, for the release of 700 to 1000 Palestinian prisoners.
“Unrealistic demands” for Israel
Among them are 100 prisoners sentenced to life in Israeli jails and Israeli
“female recruits”
.
A ceasefire would be negotiated once this first exchange has taken place, adds Reuters.
As well as a deadline for Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the release of all detainees from both camps, says the
Times of Israel
.
Hamas, finally, would demand
“the withdrawal of Israeli forces”
from
“all populated areas”
of Gaza, added a source member of the Islamist group to AFP.
However, the hope of a truce, fiercely negotiated for several weeks by the mediating countries - United States, Qatar, Egypt - is probably not possible for the immediate future.
“Hamas continues to stick to unrealistic demands.
An update on the issue will be submitted tomorrow to the War Cabinet and the Security Cabinet
,” responded this Friday morning the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on X.
These new proposals formulated by the terrorist group are only a new chapter in the intense negotiations between the stakeholders and the mediating states.
At the beginning of March, in Cairo, a proposed agreement was already on the table.
The latter provided for a six-week truce, which would have started at the start of Ramadan, the month of fasting for Muslims, on March 10 or 11.
Hamas said it was committed to freeing 42 hostages, kidnapped on October 7, in exchange for Palestinian common law prisoners.
Other talks, all of which failed, have taken place in recent months.
At the end of November, however, an agreement allowed the release of 105 people in exchange for 240 Palestinians.
Israel had refused to release detainees convicted of bloody crimes from prison.
More than 31,000 dead in the Gaza Strip, says Hamas
The war, which is entering its sixth month, was triggered on October 7 by an unprecedented attack carried out by Hamas from Gaza in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of at least 1,160 people, according to a count of AFP established from official Israeli sources.
According to Israel, around 250 people were kidnapped that day and 130 of them are still hostages in Gaza, 32 of whom are believed to have died.
In retaliation, Israel promised
to “annihilate”
the movement, in power in Gaza since 2007, and launched a vast offensive which has so far left at least 31,341 dead in the Gaza Strip, mostly civilians, according to the Islamist group.