A senior Hamas official said on Wednesday the Islamist movement was ready to release all the Israeli soldiers it is holding captive in exchange for all Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, amid negotiations to extend a truce over Gaza.
Hamas official and former Gaza health minister Bassem Naim said the group was going through “hard negotiations” to extend a cessation of hostilities that was scheduled to end early Thursday after a six-day pause in fighting.
“We are ready to release all soldiers in exchange for all our prisoners,” Naim told a press conference in Cape Town, during a visit to South Africa.
Gaza militants took about 240 captives from southern Israel in an unprecedented October 7 attack that Israeli officials say killed around 1,200 people, most of them civilians.
In response, Israel has vowed to eliminate Hamas and has unleashed an air and ground campaign that the Hamas government says has killed nearly 15,000 people, also mostly civilians.
Sixty Israeli hostages and 180 Palestinian prisoners have been released under the truce agreement to the joy of their relatives.
Among the hostages still held by Hamas are soldiers who are excluded from the exchange agreement, and the Islamist movement is likely to use then as an important bargaining chip.
In 2011, more than 1,000 Palestinians were exchanged for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been taken prisoner by Hamas five years earlier.
