Hamas says it is too early to talk about releasing hostages

“AND “It’s too early to talk about the issue of prisoners without first stopping the aggression” in the Gaza Strip, Osama Abu Khaled, a member of the Hamas cabinet, told EFE.

The organization is “establishing contacts with all parties involved to put an end to the aggression”, said Abu Khaled, without giving further details.

Hamas continues to call on humanitarian organizations to “provide urgent and rapid aid” as well as fuel and other basic goods in the face of the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, where more than 2.2 million people are on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe .

Abu Khaled reiterated that the Islamist movement, which has controlled Gaza since 2007 and has been at war with Israel for six days, rejects the opening of a humanitarian corridor because it “aims to force the displacement” of Gaza’s inhabitants.

“The Palestinian people, with all their strength, men, women, children and the elderly, would rather die than abandon their land and their homes. What is needed is for humanitarian organizations to be allowed to enter,” he said.

In Gaza, at least 1,350 people were killed and 6,049 injured by Israeli airstrikes, and hospitals are without electricity and are in urgent need of materials that have pushed their situation to the limit.

Negotiations continue between Egypt and the United States on humanitarian aid to Gaza and the transfer of wounded in need of treatment in Egypt, as well as on a truce proposed by the Egyptian authorities, according to the sources, who stated that so far all these proposals were rejected by Israel.

The number of displaced people in the Gaza Strip exceeded 338,000, increasing by 75,000 the number of civilians who fled their homes in Palestinian territory in a single day, the UN Humanitarian Aid Coordination Office (OCHA) reported today.

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