Only prisoner swap deal will release captured Israelis: Hamas

The Gaza-ruled Islamic Hamas movement said on Wednesday that the Israeli soldiers held in the coastal enclave will be released only through a prisoner swap deal with Israel. 

"The Israeli captives would see the sunlight when our (Palestinian) prisoners do it," Ismail Rudwan, a senior Hamas official, said in a press statement sent to The New Arab.

Rudwan's remarks were a response to statements issued by Israeli Prime Minister Yair Labid lately, who said that "To issue further work permits [for Palestinians] will be contingent on releasing our captured sons (soldiers) in Gaza and returning them to their families."

Hamas holds four Israeli soldiers, while Israel claims that two of them, Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin were killed in Gaza during the Israeli military offensive in 2014 and Hamas is merely holding their remains.

Hamas, Rudwan stressed, will not accept Israeli "blackmails" and will not give up the most important national issue, Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli jails. 

"If the Israeli occupation would like to release its captives, it must meet the conditions of the Palestinian resistance," Rudwan said. 

Egypt's efforts to curb tensions in Gaza bring hope of Israel prisoner swap deal https://t.co/Ryib3X0hsx

— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) August 3, 2022

In 2011, Hamas and Israel implemented a prisoner exchange deal in which Israel released 1,027 Palestinian detainees, including prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment, in return for Hamas freeing captive soldier Gilad Shalit.

In 2014, Israel re-arrested 49 of the "liberated detainees" who lived in the West Bank.

Since then, Hamas has been seeking to reach a prisoner exchange deal through indirect negotiations with Israel under Egyptian and UN mediations, but Israel has refused to do so.