Hamas official accuses Israel of violating terms of hostage deal

A senior adviser to Hamas leader abroad Ismail Haniyeh claims Israel violated the terms of the temporary ceasefire in a statement made hours before an apparent delay in the release of the second batch of the hostages.

Taher al-Nono tells Al Jazeera that Israel did not comply with clauses regarding the entry of humanitarian aid trucks into Gaza, particularly regarding the distribution of aid in the northern Strip where the fighting has been most intense.

However, Israel has allowed 200 trucks into the Strip, as required by the deal, and Israel’s COGAT military liaison to the Palestinians announced earlier that 50 of those trucks reached northern Gaza.

Nono also claims that Israel also didn’t adhere to terms regarding the release of the Palestinian prisoners, which Hamas had pushed to be freed in a different order than what Israel carried out.

The Walla news site, citing an anonymous source familiar with the details of the negotiations, reports that Hamas claims that the order under which Israel was supposed to release the Palestinian prisoners was based on length of imprisonment, with those jailed the longest to be released first. However, this was not the order by which the prisoners were released by Israel on Thursday.

The senior Hamas official claims the IDF violated the deal by firing at Gazans who had been seeking to return to northern Gaza in what led to the deaths of two Palestinians. Israel asserts that a clause of the deal included one barring Palestinians from returning to northern Gaza where the IDF is still operating.

For its part, Hamas is going above and beyond the terms of the deal, Nono claims, pointing to the terror group’s release yesterday of 11 Thai and Filipino nationals, who were brutally taken hostage during the October 7 massacre. The release of those hostages is believe to have been agreed to in direct talks between Thailand and Iran, and they were not a part of the deal Israel agreed to with Qatar.