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SvennoJ on 13 June 2024
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Interview with Osama Hamdan by CNN

Hamas official says ‘no one has any idea’ how many Israeli hostages are still alive

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/13/middleeast/hamas-interview-israel-gaza-hostages-intl/index.html

Shortened version below (without all the IDF censor added bits and repeated background)

The fate of the 120 remaining hostages in Gaza is crucial to any deal to end the protracted and bloody conflict between Israel and Hamas. But a senior Hamas official has told CNN that “no one has an idea” how many of them are alive, and that any deal to release them must include guarantees of a permanent ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Speaking to CNN in the Lebanese capital Beirut, Hamdan said the latest proposal on the table – an Israeli plan that was first publicly announced by US President Joe Biden late last month – did not meet the group’s demands for an end to the war.

Hamdan told CNN 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.”

Hamdan told CNN the duration of the ceasefire was a key issue for Hamas, which is concerned that Israel has no intention of following through with the second phase of the deal. The end of hostilities must be permanent, he said, and Israel must withdraw from Gaza completely.

“The Israelis want the ceasefire only for six weeks and then they want to go back to the fight, which I think the Americans, till now, they did not convince the Israelis to accept (a permanent ceasefire),” he said, adding that he believes the US needs to convince Israel to accept a permanent ceasefire as part of the deal.

Question of responsibility

Speaking to CNN inside a modest office decorated with a large map of Gaza and panoramic photo of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, Hamdan repeatedly deflected any questions about Hamas’ role in the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. He called the October 7 terror attacks, which sparked the current war in Gaza, “a reaction against the occupation.”

“The one who is in charge or responsible for that is (the Israeli) occupation. If you resist the occupation, (they) will kill you, if you did not resist the occupation, (they) also will kill you and deport you out of your country. So what we are supposed to do, just to wait?,” he said.

Hamdan also dismissed as fake reports that Sinwar suggested the deaths of thousands of Palestinians were “necessary sacrifices.”

Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using civilians in Gaza as human shields and earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal published what it said were leaked messages from Sinwar to other Hamas leaders in which he allegedly expressed an uncompromising determination to continue fighting, regardless of the human cost.

Hamdan told CNN the messages “were fake.”

“It was fake messages done by someone who is not Palestinian and (it) was sent (to the) Wall Street Journal as part of the pressure against Hamas and provoking the people against the leader,” he said without providing evidence. “No one can accept the killing of the Palestinians, of his own people.”

‘no one has any idea’ how many Israeli hostages are still alive

Israel believes that more than 70 hostages of the more than 100 who are still held in Gaza to be alive.

Speaking to CNN, Hamdan said he didn’t know how many were still alive. “I don’t have any idea about that. No one has an idea about this,” he said, alleging – without providing any evidence – that the Israeli operation to free four of the hostages on Saturday resulted in the deaths of three others, including an American citizen.

Asked about the testimony of a doctor who treated the released hostages and said they suffered mental and physical abuse and were beaten every hour, Hamdan again blamed Israel for their suffering.

“I believe if they have mental problem, 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 said, adding that comparing images of the hostages taken before and after the eight-months long captivity shows “they were better than before”

Brutality of Israel’s war on Gaza becoming ‘dangerously normalised’: NRC

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has warned that images of brutality from Israel’s war on Gaza have become so common that there is a danger of the horror becoming “normalised”.

“We have all become so accustomed to images of brutality and destruction in Gaza that it has now become dangerously normalised,” said Suze van Meegen, NRC’s head of operations in Gaza.

“Even after more than eight months of violence, there was absolutely nothing normal about the scale and ferocity of attacks on civilians in Gaza’s Middle Area last week,” van Meegen said.

“It is not normal for a whole population to live in constant fear and with overwhelming grief. It is not normal to feel your safety is at greater risk in a school or hospital than elsewhere. It is not normal for a community to bury hundreds of people each week,” she said.

“The use of a unilaterally declared ‘humanitarian zone’ as a battleground last week betrays any suggestion of civilian protection or respect for humanitarian space,” she added.