“High-ranking Hamas officials in Qatar have lost contact with the Gaza leadership, so negotiations are deemed meaningless.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presides over a cabinet meeting
[AP 연합뉴스자료사진. 재판매 및 DB 금지]
(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Hwang Cheol-hwan = There was a media report that Israel’s war cabinet rejected the plan to send a negotiation team to Qatar to resume hostage release negotiations with the Palestinian armed political group Hamas.
According to the Israeli daily Haaretz on the 13th (local time), local broadcaster Channel 13 reported, citing multiple sources familiar with the situation, that a proposal to dispatch David Varnia, director of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, to Qatar was rejected.
Sources said the decision was made due to a loss of communication between Hamas senior officials staying in Qatar and local leaders in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, which has become a war zone.
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At present, it has been determined that it is difficult to know to what extent Hamas is prepared to agree to the release of hostages.
Haaretz added, “Some have assessed that Hamas leaders in the Palestinian Gaza Strip will have difficulty contacting the Qatari negotiation team because the war is ongoing.”
It is reported that the war cabinet members also decided not to put forward a proposal or initiate talks until they can be sure that Hamas is serious about reaching an agreement on hostage negotiations.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other members of the war cabinet expressed the view that sending Director Varnia to Qatar is currently meaningless, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Benny Gantz, leader of the second opposition National Unity Party, who participated in Israel’s war cabinet, also expressed their opinion in this regard. It is reported that there was no disagreement.
However, it is said that the three people agreed that they should not enter into negotiations right now, but showed some differences in temperature.
While Prime Minister Netanyahu and Minister Gallant took a passive stance regarding negotiations, waiting for Hamas to make the first move, Gantz expressed the view that Qatar, which played a mediating role, needed to play a role, Haaretz reported.
Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel in the early morning of October 7, the Jewish Sabbath, killing over 1,200 people, including civilians, soldiers, and foreigners, and abducting over 240 people to the Gaza Strip and taking them hostage.
As both sides agreed to a seven-day temporary ceasefire starting on the 24th of last month, Hamas released 105 female and minor hostages, and Israel also released 240 Palestinian women and minor prisoners who were imprisoned in its own correctional facilities.
It is estimated that there are about 137 hostages who have not yet been released, and they are believed to be held in Hamas tunnels underground in the Gaza Strip.
Israel has been waging a ground war in the Gaza Strip since late October following retaliatory airstrikes. Health authorities in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Hamas, said that the number of Palestinians who have died so far is as high as 18,000.
hwangch@yna.co.kr
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2023/12/14 08:47 Sent
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2023-12-13 23:47:17
