Hamas rejects Israeli proposal to exchange prisoners for Hamas senior officer’s brother

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper has reported that Hamas has rejected an Israeli prisoner exchange proposal made over the past two months.

The newspaper revealed that Hamas refused to discuss a prisoner exchange deal in order to release the brother of a senior officer in Hamas’ security apparatus who suffers from mental illness and who crossed into Israel from Gaza, in exchange for releasing Abera Mengistu, an Ethiopian Jew, and Hisham Al-Sayyad, an Arab Bedouin, who both also suffer from emotional problems, according to the newspaper.

Hamas has refused to discuss this issue or provide any information on the prisoners until the Israeli occupation forces release the dozens of prisoners who were released as part of the Shalit prisoner exchange deal and were then re-detained by Israel, according to Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper.

Hamas MP and spokesman Mushir Al-Masri stressed the need to continue measures to support the prisoners due to the daily Israeli attacks they are subject to. He said that what the occupation is doing to the prisoners is “a means to pressure Hamas and [its armed wing] Al-Qassam Brigades in a failed attempt to receive information about its missing soldiers in Gaza.”

Al-Masri noted that the occupation would not receive any information “before paying the required price.”

The Al-Qassam Brigades announced on 2 April that they had captured four Israelis, two of which are soldiers captured during the war in the summer of 2014. Their pictures and names were announced but no other information was revealed.

Hamas stressed that no information about the four soldiers will be given to the occupation until it makes clear payments and concessions before and after the negotiations, noting there have been no negotiations in this regard so far.