Top Hamas official in Lebanon told the CNN that “no one has an idea” of how many of the remaining 120 hostages in Gaza are still alive.
In an interview with CNN’s Ben Wedeman in Beirut, Hamdan said that Hamas “needed a clear position from Israel to accept the ceasefire, a complete withdrawal from Gaza, and let the Palestinians to determine their future by themselves.”
“The reconstruction, the (lifting) of the siege … and we are ready to talk about a fair deal about the prisoners exchange,” the Hamas official added.
He went on to say in the interview that a key issue for the ceasefire deal was its duration, blaming the Israeli occupation for not intending to follow through all the steps in the deal.
Hamdan then responded to Wedeman’s attempts to point the finger at the Palestinian resistance group over the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
In this context, Hamdan stressed that Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7 was a “reaction against the Israeli occupation.”
The Hamas official also dismissed reports CNN cited where Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, said that the tens of thousands of deaths “were necessary sacrifices.”
When Hamdan was asked about the mental state of the Israeli captives who were recovered last week during Nuseirat operation, he directed the blame again to the Zionist entity.
“This is because of what Israel have done in Gaza. Because (no one can) handle what Israel is doing, bombing each day, killing civilians, killing women and children … they saw that (with) their own eyes,” he was quoted as saying.
Source: CNN and Israeli media (edited by Al-Manar English Website)
