Depraved Hamas leaders, who enjoy playing around with the emotions of the hostages’ family members, are once again simply feigning interest in a hostage deal with no intention of carrying through.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday evening that any deal is unlikely while Biden is still in office.
According to the report, Hamas has renewed its demand for a permanent end to the IDF’s presence in Gaza, a condition that Israel has long refused due to the risk the scenario poses to Israel’s security.
Hamas refused to even provide a list of hostages designated as humanitarian cases, who are elderly or ill, Kan News reported on Tuesday evening.
Instead, the terror group’s new demand is a week-long ceasefire without the release of hostages and on the fourth day of the truce, Hamas will supposedly provide the list. According to the Kan report, Hamas is well aware of the location of most of the hostages but is simply trying to buy time.
Hamas’s previous ploy was to reject Israel’s demand for the release of 34 hostages classified as humanitarian cases, instead saying they would release 22 living hostages and 12 bodies – a proposal Israel swiftly rejected.
Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump threatened Hamas at a New Year’s Eve party on Tuesday at his Mar-a-Lago estate, telling reporters: “I’ll put it this way: they better let the hostages come back soon.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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2 Responses
Trump makes so many threats that nobody takes him seriously anymore. He foolishly mouths off on Canada, Mexico, EU, Greenland and Panama and Hamas likely just shrugs him off.
One very powerful tool Trump has against Hamas is to either charge or threaten to charge their leaders in Qatar with terror crimes of kidnapping and killing of Americans, which is a federal crime. They can be charged both because they are responsible for what their organization does just like the leader of a country can be charged for war crimes committed by their army and also for providing material support for terror acts resulting in the kidnapping and murder of Americans. Both of these crimes carry a life sentence. And as opposed to Biden, Trump wouldn’t hesitate to demand that Qatar hand them over. The US can also threaten to go after and seize the billions in personal assets of those Hamas leaders in addition to assets of Hamas itself such as office buildings the own in the UAE. And once the US Treasury sets its sites on seizing assets they never let up, becoming a long term problem for both Hamas and their billionaire leaders.