The armed wing of Hamas declared on Friday that the movement would not back down from its demand that Israel leave Gaza in order to ensure the release of the captives who were taken prisoner in the October 7 attack.
“Our top priority to reach a prisoner exchange deal is the complete commitment for the halt of aggression and an enemy withdrawal, and there is no compromise on this,” Abu Obeida, spokesman for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said in a televised statement.
The announcement was made as optimism for a fresh ceasefire in the five-month-old conflict between Israel and Hamas began to wane following the Palestinian organization’s extraordinary offensive on southern Israel on October 7.
Before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which may start as early as Sunday depending on the lunar calendar, mediators had been frantically trying to secure a cease-fire.
The delegation of Hamas expressed discontent with the Israeli responses to its requests on Thursday and departed the most recent round of negotiations in Cairo to have talks with the movement’s leadership in Qatar.
Israel has been under pressure from Hamas to leave Gaza, but Israel has refused.
Hamas seized about 250 hostages in the October 7 attack, some of whom were released during a week-long truce in November.
Israel believes 99 hostages remain alive in Gaza and that 31 have died.
It was anticipated that any new peace agreement would involve the release of certain hostages in exchange for Israeli-held Palestinian inmates.
The health ministry of the Hamas-run area in Gaza reports that at least 30,878 Palestinians have died as a result of Israel’s military campaign of retaliation to destroy Hamas.
In addition, Abu Obeida on Friday urged “our people” to organize and “crawl” toward the Al-Aqsa mosque complex in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, which has historically been a hotbed of unrest during Ramadan.
