Hamas requests negotiations, promises not to execute hostages

© Photo: Israeli government website

The representative of the Hamas political leadership, Abu Marzook, asked Tel Aviv to stop air and missile attacks on the Gaza Strip and invited Israelis to the negotiations through Western media. He promised that the militant group would not execute hostages and admitted that Hamas civilian leaders knew nothing about the October 7 terrorist attack.

One of the senior leaders of the Hamas group, diplomat Abu Marzook, the member of the Hamas political bureau, who previously worked on improving contacts between Palestinians and Western states, canceled the previously expressed threat to kill hostages from Israel.

Earlier, the militant wing of Hamas announced its intention to kill people abducted in Israel on October 7-8 after the IDF’s response in the Gaza Strip. According to Marzook, Hamas recognized this idea as destructive and erroneous.

"This is a mistake. We cannot execute hostages,”

- Abu Marzook said,

Meanwhile, he clarified that among the captured IDF soldiers there are dead - four people died from injuries received during the bombing of their place of detention by Israeli military aircraft. In this regard, the Palestinian politician called on Tel Aviv to stop bombing attacks and invited Israelis to negotiations to discuss, among other things, the conditions for the surrender of hostages. However, he did not comment on the missile attacks on Israeli cities from Gaza.

Abu Marzook also assured Western media that the civilian leadership of Hamas knew nothing about its militants preparing a large-scale terrorist attack on Israel. According to him, everyone except the militant wing of Hamas learned about the outbreak of war with Israel from the morning news.

The diplomat was amazed at how bold the Hamas attack turned out to be - the militants infiltrated to more than two dozen cities and villages. Even those planning the attack did not count on such an outcome, Abu Marzook concluded.