GAZA: Palestinian group Hamas said it is “ready to release” 12 captives taken into Gaza but “the situation on the ground” with Israeli air and land attacks “is what hinders this from being completed”, Al Jazeera reported.
A post on the organisation’s Al-Qassam Brigades’s Telegram channel said it was ready to release “12 detainees in Gaza who hold foreign nationalities, but the occupation obstructed that”.
Israel claimed 241 people were taken captive by Hamas when it launched its attack on October 7. Four have been released so far – two Israelis and two Americans.
Israel has relentlessly bombarded the besieged Gaza Strip, levelling entire city blocks and killing thousands, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza has said that 10,328 people in the besieged enclave have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 7. The figure includes 4,237 children.
Read More: ‘Gaza ceasefire more urgent’ as Israeli attacks kill over 10,000 Palestinians
Earlier in the day, Palestinian news agency a Palestinian journalist was killed in an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip and another was wounded.
Mohammad Abu Hasira was the latest among dozens of journalists killed in the month-long conflict. He “was killed in an Israeli bombing that targeted his house located near the fishermen’s port west of Gaza City,” WAFA news agency said.
WAFA reported that Abu Hasira “and 42 members of his family, including his sons and brothers” were killed in the strike.
Gaza close to ‘breaking point’ without fuel: UN agencies
Gaza services are close to a “breaking point” without fuel supplies, UN Humanitarian Office (OCHA) spokesperson Jens Laerke has said.
He added that none of the 569 aid trucks that had reached the enclave so far were carrying fuel.
Last week UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said there had been “some progress” in negotiations on letting fuel into the Israeli-besieged Gaza strip, without elaborating.
“More and more facilities are closing down, and more and more life-saving means are closing down,” said World Health Organisation (WHO) spokesperson Christian Lindmeier at the same briefing, referring to fuel supplies.
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