No ceasefire or prisoner release in exchange for US-Israeli hostage: Netanyahu
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that the release of a US-Israeli hostage announced by Hamas would not lead to a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip or the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Negotiations for a possible deal to secure the release of all hostages in Gaza would continue “under fire, during preparations for an intensification of the fighting”, Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office.
Hamas on Sunday said it would release Edan Alexander, a US-Israeli soldier held in Gaza, as the group revealed it was engaged in direct talks with the United States towards a ceasefire in the war-battered territory.
No date was given, but the family of 21-year-old Alexander said they had been informed that he might be released “in the coming days”.
“Israel has not committed to a ceasefire of any kind or the release of terrorists but only to a safe corridor that will allow for the release of Edan,” Netanyahu said.
The promise of Alexander’s release had been achieved through “military pressure” in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu said.
“We are in the midst of critical days in which Hamas has been presented with a deal that would enable the release of our hostages,” he added.
Earlier, two Hamas officials told AFP that talks were ongoing in the Qatari capital of Doha with the United States and reported “progress” had been made.
Israeli strikes, meanwhile, continued, with Gaza’s civil defence agency reporting that at least 10 people were killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike on a school housing displaced people.
“At least 10 (dead), including several women and children, as well as dozens of wounded, were transported following an Israeli airstrike on the Fatima Bint Asad school, which is home to more than 2,000 displaced people in the city of Jabalia,” Civil Defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
Gaza militants hold 58 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that triggered the war, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
-AFP
