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 strain continues, warning that “new directions” had been given to its fighters guarding the captives in case Israeli troops method.
“[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s insistence on liberating the captives via army strain as a substitute of reaching a deal means they are going to return to their households in coffins. Their households have to decide on between receiving them lifeless or alive,” Abu Obeida, spokesman for the Qassam Brigades, mentioned in a press release on Monday, two days after the bodies of six captives have been recovered by Israel.
“Netanyahu and the military are absolutely chargeable for the loss of life of the captives after they deliberately hindered any prisoners’ alternate deal,” it mentioned.
The assertion from the Qassam Brigades got here shortly after Netanyahu mentioned 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 on your forgiveness for not bringing them again alive,” Netanyahu mentioned throughout a televised information convention earlier on Monday as protests over the deaths continued for a second day in Israel.
“We have been shut, however we didn’t succeed. Hamas pays a really heavy value for this,” he added.
Senior Hamas official Izzat al-Risheq mentioned 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 conflict in Gaza and free the captives.
“It appears that evidently for Netanyahu, the choice – which is his private, political and private life – is extra essential than the lives of the Israeli captives,” Eldar mentioned, including that regardless of a lot of protesters, “the Israeli proper and radical proper” who assist the federal government “have the higher hand”.
“The federal government and the prime minister are actually on the defensive,” Ori Goldberg, an professional on Israeli politics, told Al Jazeera. “That is about momentum now.”
In the meantime, US President Joe Biden additionally said Netanyahu was not doing sufficient to safe a deal for the discharge of the captives.
Chatting with reporters on the White Home on Monday, Biden was requested whether or not he thought Netanyahu was doing sufficient to achieve a deal. Biden mentioned, “No.” He didn’t elaborate.
Months of stop-start negotiations mediated by the USA, Qatar and Egypt have up to now failed to achieve an accord on a Gaza ceasefire proposal laid out by Biden in Could.
Hamas needs an settlement to finish the conflict and get Israeli forces out of Gaza whereas Netanyahu says the conflict can solely finish as soon as Hamas is defeated.
Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli ambassador and authorities adviser, told Al Jazeera that it’s Netanyahu who “completely has little interest in a hostage deal or ceasefire”.
“Those that are shocked and devastated and angered about what occurred shouldn’t be stunned as a result of that is precisely what the [Israeli] defence minister [Yoav Gallant] and all of us have been warning would occur,” Pinkas mentioned.
“His [Netanyahu’s] and solely his reluctance to have interaction in a deal is what made all this occur.”