A senior Hamas official said “no one has any idea” how many of the 120 hostages remaining in Gaza are alive. The comment was made in an interview with CNN.
In the CNN interview, Hamas spokesman and political bureau member Osama Hamdan said: “I have no idea. Nobody has an idea about it.” CNN reports that he claimed – without providing any evidence – that the Israeli operation to free four hostages on Saturday resulted in the deaths of three others, including an American citizen.
Hamdan was asked about the testimony of a doctor who treated the released hostages, who reported that they had suffered mental and physical abuse and were beaten hourly.
He replied: “I believe that if they have mental problems, it is because of what Israel did in Gaza. Why [nessuno può] deal with what Israel is doing, bombing every day, killing civilians, killing women and children… they’ve seen it [con] your own eyes.”
Hamdan said that any agreement to release hostages held in Gaza would have to include guarantees of a permanent ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
Hamdan also told CNN that the latest US-backed proposal does not meet Hamas’ demands, with one of the main concerns being the duration of the ceasefire. Hamas wants written guarantees from the United States for a permanent ceasefire, as well as the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, to sign the truce proposal, two Egyptian security sources told Reuters earlier this week.
Hamdan also denied reports that Hamas head in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, suggested that the deaths of thousands of Palestinians were “necessary sacrifices.” Hamdan told CNN that the messages, reported by the Wall Street Journal, “were false.”
According to the CNN report, “Hamdan repeatedly deflected all questions about Hamas’s role in the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza” and called the October 7 attacks, which sparked the current war in Gaza, “a reaction against the occupation ”.
