Group’s armed wing Qassam Brigades points assertion, two days after our bodies of six captives are recovered from a Gaza tunnel by Israeli forces.
The armed wing of the Palestinian group Hamas says captives held in Gaza would return to Israel “in coffins” if Israeli army stress continues, warning that “new instructions” had been given to its fighters guarding the captives in case Israeli troops method.
“[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s insistence on freeing the captives through military pressure instead of reaching a deal means they will go back to their families in coffins. Their families have to choose between receiving them dead or alive,” Abu Obeida, spokesman for the Qassam Brigades, stated in an announcement on Monday, two days after the our bodies of six captives have been recovered by Israel.
“Netanyahu and the army are fully responsible for the death of the captives after they intentionally hindered any prisoners’ exchange deal,” it stated.
The assertion from the Qassam Brigades got here shortly after Netanyahu stated the six captives whose our bodies have been recovered from a tunnel in southern Gaza’s Rafah space had been “executed” by Hamas.
“I ask for your forgiveness for not bringing them back alive,” Netanyahu stated throughout a televised information convention earlier on Monday as protests over the deaths continued for a second day in Israel.
“We were close, but we didn’t succeed. Hamas will pay a very heavy price for this,” he added.
Senior Hamas official Izzat al-Risheq stated the six captives have been killed in Israeli air strikes.
In the meantime, protests in Israel over the deaths of the captives continued with indignant demonstrators saying they may have been returned alive if Netanyahu’s authorities had signed a ceasefire with Hamas.
Nevertheless, political analyst Akiva Eldar instructed Al Jazeera {that a} nationwide strike in Israel on Monday and rising public anger won’t make an actual distinction to finish the struggle in Gaza and free the captives.
“It seems that for Netanyahu, the alternative – which is his personal, political and personal life – is more important than the lives of the Israeli captives,” Eldar stated, including that regardless of numerous protesters, “the Israeli right and radical right” who help the federal government “have the upper hand”.
“The government and the prime minister are now on the defensive,” Ori Goldberg, an skilled on Israeli politics, instructed Al Jazeera. “This is about momentum now.”
In the meantime, US President Joe Biden additionally stated Netanyahu was not doing sufficient to safe a deal for the discharge of the captives.
Talking to reporters on the White Home on Monday, Biden was requested whether or not he thought Netanyahu was doing sufficient to succeed in a deal. Biden stated, “No.” He didn’t elaborate.
Months of stop-start negotiations mediated by the US, Qatar and Egypt have thus far failed to succeed in an accord on a Gaza ceasefire proposal laid out by Biden in Could.
Hamas needs an settlement to finish the struggle and get Israeli forces out of Gaza whereas Netanyahu says the struggle can solely finish as soon as Hamas is defeated.
Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli ambassador and authorities adviser, instructed Al Jazeera that it’s Netanyahu who “absolutely has no interest in a hostage deal or ceasefire”.
“Those who are shocked and devastated and angered about what happened should not be surprised because this is exactly what the [Israeli] defence minister [Yoav Gallant] and all of us were warning would happen,” Pinkas stated.
“His [Netanyahu’s] and only his reluctance to engage in a deal is what made all this happen.”
