Israel ‘putting no pressure on Hamas to agree a prisoner swap’

Israeli security forces near Israel’s Ofer Prison in the West Bank city of Ramallah on 16 April 2015 [Shadi Hatem/Apaimages]

A veteran Israeli journalist and defence analyst said on Wednesday that Israel has so far failed to put pressure on Hamas to agree on a prisoner swap deal, Arabi 21 has reported.

Writing in Israeli Hayom, Yoav Limor explained the reasons for Israel’s failure in this matter. Hamas, he pointed out, has remained steadfast.

“Israel should be worried because the talks are floundering,” said Limor. “It lost an opportunity to use the coronavirus crisis in the negotiations with Hamas.”

Even so, he added, while there is no precise information, all possibilities remain open. “Hamas is seeking to send a signal to Israel on different issues, including the humanitarian, economic and Covid-19 issues in Gaza, as well as a prisoner swap.”

READ: How much longer are we going to ignore Karim Younis and other Palestinian prisoners?

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.