Hamas issues rare statement attributed to Sinwar; hostage envoy floats safe passage
Terror chief congratulates Algerian president on election in message hailing Oct. 7 onslaught; US said to be at odds with fellow mediators over who to blame for lack of Gaza deal
Hamas on Tuesday issued a rare statement attributed to the terror group’s chief Yahya Sinwar, who congratulated Algeria’s incumbent President Abdelmadjid Tebboune after he was declared the winner of an election whose results have been challenged by opposition candidates.
The statement said Sinwar stressed Tebboune’s support for the Palestinians and was sending his congratulations in light of the “Al-Aqsa Flood,” using the Gaza-ruling terror organization’s name for its shock October 7 invasion and massacre in southern Israel that sparked the ongoing war in the coastal enclave.
He also said “the Palestinian people and their resistance” were fighting “heroically,” while lashing out at “the occupation” for its “barbarity.”
Sinwar, who was named Hamas’s top leader after Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in late July, is believed to be hiding in tunnels under the Gaza Strip and has issued few public statements since the launch of the October 7 attack that he’s accused of masterminding.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant this week vowed Israel would kill Sinwar and his brother Muhammad, a senior commander in Hamas’s military wing, though the government’s official point person on efforts to free the Gaza hostages said Tuesday that if Sinwar relinquishes the terror group’s control of the Strip and releases all the hostages, Israel would provide him with safe passage out of the enclave.
Speaking to Bloomberg during a visit to Washington, Gal Hirsch said he was “ready to provide safe passage to Sinwar, his family, whoever wants to join him.”
“We want the hostages back,” he aded. “We want demilitarization, de-radicalization of course — a new system that will manage Gaza.”
Hirsch said that he presented the offer a day and a half ago, but did not elaborate on whether or not there has been any interest in the offer from the other side of the negotiating table.
Mediators said divided on who to blame for lack of deal
Israeli television, meanwhile, reported Tuesday that the United States is at odds with fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar regarding who is to blame for the failure thus far to reach a hostage-ceasefire agreement.
While the US is supportive of Israel, and has publicly stated that Hamas is to blame for the deadlock — including on its demands regarding the releases of Palestinian security prisoners — Egypt and Qatar “think the opposite,” Channel 12 news reported.
The disagreement is so profound that Egypt and Qatar have “considered issuing a joint statement blaming Israel for the failure of the contacts,” the report said.
White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby, saying Monday that the US was “working night and day” to try to get a deal in place, specified that “Hamas is the main obstacle to this right now.”
Earlier Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said “not even a handful of issues” remain, and that they are “hard but fully resolvable.”
According to the Channel 12 report, Israel’s negotiators fear the differences between the mediators will further delay a possible deal.
The network also reported that Qatar and Egypt have no real leverage over Hamas.
It noted that Hamas has been deprived of its smuggling route along the Philadelphi Corridor at the Gaza-Egypt border but is profiteering massively from humanitarian aid. It cited an estimate made known to the security establishment that Hamas has thus far brought in $500 million by commandeering and selling the supplies that enter the Strip at a rate of 200 trucks a day. Hamas, the report said, uses the money, among other purposes, to recruit new gunmen — of whom it said there are now 3,000 in northern Gaza.
According to the channel’s Arab affairs analyst Ohad Hemo, Hamas has reasserted “full governance” in northern Gaza, where it has resumed paying salaries to some of its officials.
Ben Gvir reportedly excluded from new security forum
Channel 12 also reported Tuesday evening on a brief disagreement that broke out between government ministers during the cabinet meeting in which they were shown footage of the tunnel in Gaza where the six hostages executed by Hamas were held.
The report said ministers were told that the footage was being shown to them at the request of the families of the hostages, who hoped that seeing the harsh conditions would help change the minds of lawmakers who opposed a deal for their release.
At this point, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir retorted that he, too, “spoke with the families,” and that “not everyone wants a deal, there are those who want to increase the military pressure,” the report stated.
Science and Technology Minister Gila Gamliel was said to have then told the ultranationalist leader to “stop shouting and let them show us the footage as the families requested.”
The report added that several ministers were brought to tears by the harrowing footage of the tunnel where the hostages were held and murdered, but did not specify which lawmakers.
Separately, the Kan public broadcaster reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has established a new forum to deal with matters pertaining to war management that does not include Ben Gvir, three months after the war cabinet was disbanded after the National Unity party left the government to protest the premier’s handling of the war. Ben Gvir has repeatedly voiced his desire to be among those making the decisions in the war.
The new forum will receive security briefings from IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and the heads of Israel’s defense establishments regarding developments on all fronts, the report said.
According to Kan, the limited forum is made up of Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, Foreign Minister Israel Katz, Shas party leader Aryeh Deri and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
A source close to Netanyahu alleged to the broadcaster that Smotrich was invited to join the forum because the premier “trusts him not to leak the proceedings, and to try and convince him to support the deal to release the hostages.”
Netanyahu’s Likud party previously accused Ben Gvir of leaking “state secrets and private conversations.”
