Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida demands that Israel release all Palestinian security prisoners in return for the Israeli hostages it is holding, AFP reports.
“The price to pay for the large number of enemy hostages in our hands is to empty the (Israeli) prisons of all Palestinian prisoners,” he says, in a statement broadcast by the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa television channel.
Hamas and other Gaza terror groups are believed to be holding some 230 hostages, abducted from Israel during the terrorists’ October 7 assault on southern Israel in which over 1,400 were killed, mostly civilians.
Ahead of a likely Israeli ground invasion, Obeida also says Hamas is “waiting for you,” and predicts “a great defeat” and the imminent end of Zionism.
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