Hamas official indicates even weeks-long pause would be insufficient for a hostage deal

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.