The armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas said on Monday it told Qatari mediators the group was ready to release up to 70 women and children held in Gaza in return for a five-day truce with Israel.
Headline is wrong. The article makes it clear that it’s in exchange for prisoners in Israeli jails PLUS a truce.
Last week there was an effort from the Qatari brothers to release the enemy captives from women and children, in return for the release of 200 Palestinian children and 75 women detained by the enemy" Abu Ubaida, the spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, al-Qassam Brigades, said in an audio recording posted on the group’s Telegram channel.
“The truce should include a complete ceasefire and allow aid and humanitarian relief everywhere in the Gaza Strip,” he said.
tbf, Israel releasing mammoth numbers of their prisoners for small numbers of their own citizens is pretty standard, and would probably be assumed by anyone well familiar with the history of the conflict.
“Anyone well familiar with the history of the conflict” doesn’t describe the vast majority of opinions I’ve found on the internet so I felt it was important to clarify since the headline is misleading at best.
Secondly, I think the calculus has changed. Netanyahu used to have no problem propping up Hamas. So, sure, trade Yahya Sinwar and a thousand other prisoners for Gilad Shalit. In Netanyahu’s mind, that will only help destabilize the PA and allow him to keep building settlements in the West Bank. That strategy came home to roost on October 7.
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