Hamas holds Israel’s Netanyahu fully responsible for captives’ lives

The Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, has held Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fully responsible for the lives of Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip.

This came after Netanyahu approved a plan to reoccupy Gaza following the movement’s announcement of accepting mediators’ proposal for a ceasefire- prisoner swap deal.

“We agreed to a partial deal and expressed our readiness for a comprehensive deal, but Netanyahu rejects all solutions,” Hamas said in a statement on its official Telegram channel on Sunday.

Hamas said Israeli and American admissions confirm that Netanyahu is the real obstructionist of the [prisoner] swap deals and ceasefire”.

According to the statement, the recent statements by former US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller confirmed that Netanyahu had been stalling and lying, setting new conditions whenever an agreement came closer to being finalised.

It stressed that a ceasefire agreement was the only way to return the captives, asserting that Netanyahu bears full responsibility for the fate of the remaining ones.

“More than 22 months of aggression have proven the illusion of absolute victory that war criminals Netanyahu, [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir, and [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich are babbling about. We call for continued official and popular pressure to stop the genocide and starvation against our Palestinian people,” the statement read.

The Israeli Broadcasting Authority, KAN, quoted a security source as saying that the Israeli army would begin the occupation of Gaza City after the completion of its encirclement over the next two months. According to the source, the Israeli army will begin displacing the Palestinians in the coming days.

According to the same source, Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir wants the occupation of Gaza to be slow to preserve the lives of soldiers and avoid harming the “hostages”.

Israeli Maariv newspaper quoted Israeli army sources as saying that Netanyahu does not intend to halt Operation Gideon 2, claiming it will enable the army to occupy Gaza and achieve victory over Hamas.