Just In : Hamas ready to swap all detained Israeli soldiers for Palestinian prisoners

Hamas, according to a senior official, is prepared to free all Israeli troops it has captured in exchange for all Palestinian captives held in Israel. This comes as talks to prolong the truce over Gaza continue.

According to AFP, Bassem Naim, a Hamas leader and a former Gaza health minister, stated that the party is currently engaged in “hard negotiations” to prolong a ceasefire that was supposed to conclude early Thursday following a six-day truce in violence.

During his tour to South Africa, Naim made the following statement during a news conference in Cape Town: “We are ready to release all soldiers in exchange for all our prisoners.”

In a shocking assault on October 7 that murdered around 1,200 people, the majority of whom were civilians, according to Israeli authorities, militants from Gaza abducted over 240 people from southern Israel.

The Israeli government has responded by launching an air and military war that the Hamas administration claims has killed approximately 15,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom were civilians. The goal is to destroy Hamas.

Relatives of the sixty Israeli hostages and the one hundred and eighty Palestinian detainees were elated to hear that they were released under the peace agreement.

Soldiers who were not part of the exchange deal are still held hostage by Hamas; the Islamist group is expected to use them as a negotiating chip.

Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier kidnapped five years previously by Hamas, was traded for over a thousand Palestinians in 2011.

According to activist groups, apart from the women and children released thus far, there are around 7,000 Palestinians incarcerated in Israeli prisons, many of whom are far more famous.

Even though they pledged to free all hostages in exchange, Hamas nevertheless requested that Israel release all Palestinian inmates in October.

The latest proposal was made in response to growing efforts to prolong the ceasefire. According to an insider, Hamas is prepared to extend the truce for a further four days in exchange for the release of additional Israeli hostages.

A permanent ceasefire is being negotiated with the mediators, according to Naim.

The Israeli military had previously stated that it was looking into a claim made by the armed wing of Hamas, which claimed the deaths of a mother, her four-year-old brother, and a hostage child who was just ten months old in Gaza.

Approximately sixty Israelis were killed and are buried under the rubble as a result of Israeli airstrikes, according to Naim, who made the announcement two or three weeks ago.

“I can assure you that the mother and her two children are among them.”