From the Liveblog of
Thursday, December 21, 2023
Hamas official indicates even weeks-long pause would be insufficient for a hostage deal
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad indicates to Al Jazeera that the terror group is not interested in freeing hostages in exchange for even weeks-long pauses in the fighting because Israel would continue the war afterward.
“Some people are looking for a small pause — a pause here and there for one week, two weeks, three weeks,” Hamad says. “But we want to stop the aggression [completely].”
“Because I think Israel will take the card of the hostages, and after that they will start a new round of mass killing and massacres against our people. I think we will not play this game,” says Hamad, who has said Hamas would carry out October 7-like attacks repeatedly in the future until Israel is destroyed.
