Israel hostage crisis: Hamas seeks release of Palestinian prisoners, calls non-Israeli captives ‘guests’
- Israel’s military says Hamas is holding 199 hostages in Gaza, including foreigners
- Hamas refers to non-Israel captives as ‘our guests’, and will ‘seek to protect them’
A top Hamas leader said the group “has what it needs” to free all Palestinians in Israel’s jails, indicating the militant group may try to use the Israelis it kidnapped as bargaining chips to secure the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Soon after Hamas official Khaled Meshaal made the remarks Monday on the captives, who include Israelis and non-Israelis kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, the group’s armed wing separately said the non-Israelis were “guests” who would be released “when circumstances allow”.
Gunmen from Hamas took scores of hostages after rampaging through southern Israeli communities and military bases, killing over 1,300 people. Israel’s military says the group is holding 199 hostages in Gaza. Hamas says it has between 200 and 250.
Hamas, which like other factions has long called for the release of the roughly 6,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, “has what it needs to empty the prisons of all prisoners,” Meshaal, a former Hamas chief who now heads its diaspora office in Doha, told AlAraby TV.
Israel’s collective memory has been scarred by hostage-taking going back to the Munich 1972 Olympic Games when an attack by Palestinian militants resulted in the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes and their coaches.