Hamas says Israel has no option but prisoner swap deal on terms of Palestinian resistance

​​​​GAZA CITY, Palestine/ISTANBUL

Hamas said Friday that Israel has no option but to accept a prisoner swap deal on the terms of the Palestinian resistance, after the failure of its military to free captives in the Gaza Strip.

“The only path left is to move forward with a swap deal on the resistance’s terms and will - one that guarantees full national and humanitarian rights, foremost among them the lifting of the siege and ending the policy of mass starvation,” the Palestinian resistance group said in a statement.

Indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel are ongoing in Qatar, with Egypt and Qatar mediating and the US supporting talks.

The Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper in Israel reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told close associates that his negotiating delegation will remain in Doha until a deal is reached with Hamas on a prisoner exchange and ceasefire in Gaza.

Hamas said Israel’s failures in Gaza prove its war is “a reflection of its failure on all fronts,” calling it a “historic battle that will remain etched in the memory of the struggle, as a strategic turning point revealing the fragility of the Zionist entity and exposing its crimes of killing, starvation, and genocide.”

The group said the resistance has “confused Israel’s calculations, taken the initiative from its hands, and surprised it daily with new strategies it cannot understand or counter – despite attempts to break the will of the people through starvation and siege.”

Hamas said the famine imposed on Gaza by Israel is a “deliberate crime against humanity, in which food is used as a weapon of war to subjugate a steadfast people.”

It called for urgent official and popular action “to stop this heinous crime and save hundreds of thousands of starving, besieged civilians.”

Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli army has pursued a brutal offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, killing nearly 59,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. The relentless bombardment has destroyed the enclave and led to food shortages and a spread of disease.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.