In an interview with the Russian newspaper Kommersant, the terrorist organization Hamas asserted that it is unable to free hostages until a cease-fire has been reached.
According to the publication, Abu Hamid, a member of the Hamas delegation in Moscow, needed time to track down everyone who had been transported from Israel to Gaza by different Palestinian factions during a Hamas attack on October 7.
It is well known that not all of the prisoners were captured by Hamas; some were taken by innocent bystanders and by other terrorist factions. Many of the people they detained were civilians, so we need some time to locate them in the Gaza Strip and free them, added Hamid.
He was quoted by Kommersant as adding that this endeavor required a peaceful setting. 138 of the 224 hostages are known to have foreign passports. 54 Thais, 15 Argentinians, 12 Americans, 12 Germans, 6 French, and 6 Russians are among them.
Israel has encouraged Russia to refuse the invitation of the visiting Hamas delegation, calling it “deplorable”. The Foreign Ministry urged Moscow to promptly remove the senior Hamas officials, saying, “Israel views the invitation of senior Hamas officials to Moscow as an obscene step that gives support to terrorism and legitimizes the atrocities of Hamas terrorists.”
It continued, “The hands of senior Hamas officials are stained with the blood of over 1,400 Israelis who were slaughtered, murdered, carried out to death, and burned, and they are accountable for the kidnapping of over 220 Israelis, including babies, children, women, and the elderly.”
Russia has urged a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and the resumption of negotiations aimed at reaching a peace agreement while constantly attributing the current crisis to a failure of American diplomacy.
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