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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Hamas says Kfir and Ariel Bibas, 2 and 5, and their mom are dead, and their bodies will be sent back to Israel this week
2025-02-18
[NY Post] Hamas’ youngest hostages, Kfir and Ariel Bibas, 2 and 5, and their mother are dead and their bodies will be returned to Israel this week, the terror group said in a ghoulish announcement on Tuesday.

Kfir Bibas never celebrated a birthday in freedom after he and his family were kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023 when he was just 9 months old.

Israel has not confirmed the deaths of the red-headed boys and their mom Shiri, but said it had "grave concerns" about their well-being.

The terror group’s leader in Gaza, Khalil Al Hayya, said that the four bodies of hostages will be handed over on Thursday, while six living hostages, some held for over a decade, will be returned on Saturday.

The six to be released on Saturday are the last living hostages to be freed under the ceasefire’s first phase. Three had originally been expected to be freed.

It was not immediately clear why Hamas had changed the plan.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Senior Hamas official says terror group told Egypt it’s ready to stop fighting if Israel commits to truce, demands same terms of Israel’s complete surrender
2024-10-25
[IsraelTimes] A senior Hamas official tells AFP that the terror group told Egyptian officials it was ready to stop fighting in Gaza if Israel committed to a ceasefire deal.

The official says a Hamas delegation discussed “ideas and proposals” related to a Gaza truce with Egyptian officials in Cairo earlier today.

Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV cites sources that the delegation to Cairo, headed by chief negotiator and deputy Hamas Gaza chief Khalil Al-Hayya, met with the head of Egypt’s general intelligence agency, Hassan Mahmoud Rashad.

“Hamas has expressed readiness to stop the fighting, but Israel must commit to a ceasefire, withdraw from the Gaza Strip, allow the return of displaced people, agree to a serious prisoner exchange deal, and allow the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” the official says, adding that the talks in Cairo were part of Egypt’s ongoing efforts to resume ceasefire negotiations.
Oh my. Those are Hamas’s original terms: demanding Israel surrender completely without any bending whatsoever.
Egypt and Qatar have acted as mediators between Israel and Hamas in months of talks that broke down in August without an agreement to end fighting that began when the Palestinian terror group launched its brutal onslaught on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

The report comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed Egypt’s willingness to advance a deal for the release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Earlier today, Qatar and Washington’s top diplomats said that American and Israeli negotiators would gather in Doha in the coming days to try to restart talks toward a deal for a ceasefire and the release of hostages in Gaza.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Officials said to warn PM that hostages are in dire conditions, intel is drying up
2024-10-07
[IsraelTimes] Netanyahu convenes what is reportedly the first discussion in full month on the hostages, half of whom are thought to be alive, as Israel marks one year since their abduction

Israeli security officials warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday that there has been a steady decline in the amount of intelligence being gathered on the 101 people still held captive in Gaza, but that it is nevertheless clear the conditions in which they are held have deteriorated significantly.
Yahya Sinwar is uninterested in negotiating, because he sees his only hope for not being assassinated in being surrounded by the hostages. Thus Israel’s only hope for negotiations is to take Mr. Sinwar’s existence off the table, hopefully in the process rescuing some or all of the hostages. But if not, it must be remembered that the hostages would not be in danger were it not for Hamas, and according to the Geneva Conventions — that is to say international law - and no doubt also according to Jewish law, were those idiots to actually look at the rabbis’ accumulated discussions on the subject over the centuries, Hamas is wholly responsible for everything bad that happens to them. No matter how good it might feel to the noisy anti-Bibi h8ters to blame him for everything they dislike about the universe.
The information was relayed to Netanyahu during a discussion on the plight of the hostages on the eve of the first anniversary of the October 7 Hamas terror onslaught in southern Israel, when some 1,200 people were slaughtered and 251 were seized as hostages.

“The more time that passes, there’s less and less intelligence on the hostages, and that’s very worrying,” a defense official was quoted by the Ynet news site as saying during the meeting, reportedly the first high-level engagement on the issue of the hostages in a month.

“There’s an impression that nobody is dealing with this, not the mediators, and everyone has given up,” a source with knowledge on the matter told the news outlet. “There’s a feeling that it’s fallen off the agenda given the fears of regional war.”

The discussion was attended by heads of security agencies, several government ministers and the government’s hostage point man Gal Hirsch.

During the meeting, security officials reiterated the grim estimation first shared last month that around half of the hostages are still alive, but that those who have survived until now are experiencing steadily worsening conditions.

Defense officials also warned Netanyahu and others at the meeting that Hamas has ordered those guarding hostages to execute them if they feel the army is getting close, Ynet reported, citing an unnamed source familiar with the details of the meeting.
Yes, we know.
Hamas first indicated that it had ordered its operatives to murder hostages if Israeli troops appeared to be closing in when the terror group executed six hostages in a tunnel in Rafah in late August, just days before troops operating in the area discovered their bodies and extracted them for burial in Israel.

Participants in the meeting were also provided with an update regarding the progress — or lack thereof — in indirect hostage deal negotiations between Israel and Hamas.
Hamas still won’t negotiate. No news is no news.
Sources privy to the details of the discussion reported that negotiations have remained at an impasse, with intermediary country Qatar reportedly distancing itself from Israel’s stance and moving closer to Hamas’s stated demands for a deal.
All Muslim Brotherhooders together.
Meanwhile, the sources said, the US “just wants to avoid an escalation, and lives in a fantasy that we can reach an agreement with Iran about everything, [Hezbollah in Lebanon,] and Gaza, and settle it together. They live in a delusion.”
The President is senile, the Vice President is a lush — where else could they live?
Israel is hoping that the limited ground operation it launched in southern Lebanon will shift the paradigm when it comes to the hostage negotiations, Ynet added, and that Hamas will feel the pressure being placed on its ally Hezbollah.
But if not, at least Israel will continue making giant strides toward breaking all Hezbollah’s things and killing many more of its people, just like they’ve done to Hamas.
Hamas, meanwhile, issued a statement on Sunday, declaring that the group was not prepared to make concessions on its demands for a hostage release-ceasefire deal, which include a call for the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip — something that Israel has said it is not prepared to do.
See? Lack of progress is not Israel’s fault.
In a speech aired on Hamas’s media channels, senior Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya reiterated the terror group’s opposition to the hostage deal proposal endorsed by Israel.

“What we rejected yesterday, we will not accept tomorrow, and what the occupation (Israel) failed to impose by force, it will not take at the negotiating table,” he vowed in an address littered with praise for the October 7 massacre.
Screw the negotiating table — force is clearly the way to go.
Lauding the invasion and assault of Israel’s southern communities as “glorious,” Al-Hayya claimed that “the Palestine cause has become the prime cause in the world and all parties now realize that there can be no security and no stability in the region unless our people gain their full rights.”
Oh, you sweet summer child…
According to the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry, the war in Gaza — sparked by the October 7 massacre — has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people. The toll cannot be verified, however, and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.

Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.

Al-Hayya’s speech was aired as Israel launched a new ground operation in the northern Gaza city of Jabaliya, targeting efforts by Hamas to reestablish itself in northern Gaza. Several dozen terror operatives were killed in airstrikes and tank shelling, according to the IDF.

“The operation will continue as long as necessary, while systematically striking and thoroughly destroying the terror infrastructure in the area,” the IDF said of the operation.

Prior to the cabinet meeting on Sunday night, family members of hostages told Defense Minister Yoav Gallant that they feared the renewed offensive was endangering their loved ones, according to a statement by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

“Military pressure kills hostages,” the family members reportedly told Gallant, alluding to a frequent government slogan that only military pressure will bring about the hostages’ return.
No. Hamas kills hostages, both when there is military pressure and when there is not. Otherwise at least a third of the hostages would not already be dead. Incidentally, Hezbollah also kills hostages, and they were planning to acquire their own 10/7 collection when the IDF starting doing to them what they’ve been doing to Gaza for the past year. Y’all should be grateful you don’t have a great many more hostages to make parades about.
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Related:
Khalil Al-Hayya 08/01/2024 Hamas senior official says Haniyeh was hit 'directly' by missile

Khalil Al-Hayya 08/08/2018 Israel pounds Hamas after 15 injured in rocket barrage
Khalil Al-Hayya 06/11/2014 Hamas calls on armed wing to kill soldiers and settlers

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Hamas senior official says Haniyeh was hit 'directly' by missile
2024-08-01
[GEO.TV] The missile that killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh struck him "directly", Hamas deputy chief in Gaza Khalil Al-Hayya said on Wednesday, citing witnesses who had been with Haniyeh in Iran.

As a result of the missile strike; windows, doors and walls in his room were destroyed, Al-Hayya told a press conference in Tehran.
Bet that really, really hurt. Briefly, of course.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israel pounds Hamas after 15 injured in rocket barrage
2018-08-08
[JPost Breaking] IDF strikes 12 Hamas terror targets after close to 50 projectiles fired towards southern Israel. The Israel Air Force retaliated by striking targets in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday evening after 15 people were treated for injuries resulting form rocket attacks from Gaza against southern Israel.

Following the barrages the IAF struck 12 terror targets including a plant used to manufacture components intended for the construction of tunnels as well as a tunnel for maritime terrorism along Israel's coast.

A number of terror targets in several military sites, including weapons and rockets, as well as a military compound that serves as a central logistic warehouse were also hit by IAF jets.

Red Alert sirens continued to sound in the South into late in the evening.

Hamas issued a statement saying: "We are delivering on our promise. The resistance accepted the responsibility to even the playing field with the enemy and it is succeeding in doing so."

According to the IDF, 36 projectiles were launched from the Hamas-run enclave as of late Wednesday night; four were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system.

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman held a security assessment with senior military and defense officials at the IDF Kirya Headquarters in Tel Aviv following the initial rocket barrage.

According to Barzilai Medical Center, six people were treated for body injuries and nine people were treated for shock.

Four of the projectiles fell in Sderot. A 34 year old was in light-to-moderate condition with wounds from glass shards and a 20 year old was in light condition with injuries to his limbs from Iron Dome shrapnel.

Civilians were treated at the scene after suffering from stress, including two pregnant women who started having contractions.

Two homes in Sderot were also reportedly hit by the shrapnel and several cars were damaged.

The rocket fire from Gaza came shortly after an IDF tank struck Hamas posts in Gaza after shots were fired across the border towards civilian engineering vehicles working on the IDF’s underground barrier with the coastal enclave.

At least one Gazan citizen was reported injured.

"Terrorists shot at civilian vehicles that were being used in an effort to construct the barrier around the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip. One vehicle was hit," the IDF said.

Earlier on Wednesday, the IDF closed several roads near the Gaza border after warning that it was concerned about a retaliatory attack by Hamas after two of its elite members were killed in an IDF strike on Tuesday.

According to the IDF, Route 25 and several other smaller roads were closed after Hamas was identified as having cleared several military positions along the border and threats made by the group.

The rocket fire also comes as a senior Hamas official said that UN and Egyptian-mediated cease-fire talks between the terror group and Israel have reached "advanced stages," with a deal expected to be signed soon.

"We can say that actions led by the United Nations and Egypt are in advanced stages and we hope it could yield some good from them," Khalil Al-Hayya, deputy Hamas chief in Gaza, told Al Jazeera television.

"What is required is for calm to be restored along the border between us and the Zionist enemy (Israel)."

On Sunday, Israel’s Security Cabinet met to discuss the proposed cease-fire agreement. The Prime Minister’s Office released a statement afterward saying that the IDF was ready for any eventuality.

Despite the cease-fire talks, dozens of fires have ignited following the continued launching of aerial incendiary devices into southern Israel. In response, IDF aircraft have continued to strike the cells launching the devices.

Hundreds of such devices have been launched towards Israel since late March when Gazans began weekly protests along the border with Israel.

The protests have been called the greatest threat to Israeli security in the region since Operation Protective Edge in 2014, due to the combination of terror tunnels, riots, attempted infiltration and the use of incendiary items.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 158 Gazans have been killed since the start of the weekly "March of Return."
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Hamas calls on armed wing to kill soldiers and settlers
2014-06-11
Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, has called on members of its armed wing in the West Bank to target Israeli soldiers and civilians in a bid to ease the plight of its prisoners in Israeli jails, a party front man said on Monday.!

"We call on the men of resistance in the West Bank, primarily the Al-Qassam Brigades, to fulfill their duty in protecting the prisoners on hunger strike by targeting the occupation soldiers and its settlers," Hamas front man Hussam Badran wrote on his Facebook page Monday.

"The occupation must pay a high price in the blood of its soldiers and settlers until it is persuaded to solve the issue of prisoners on hunger strike. This is everyone's task, on the individual and organizational levels," he wrote.

Badran's comments came a week after the swearing in of a Hamas-backed Paleostinian unity government in Ramallah, endorsed by the US and the EU. On Sunday, EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso told the Herzliya Conference that Israel should support the new Paleostinian government "in the interest of a future peace deal and of a legitimate and representative government."

Israel suspended all negotiations with the Paleostinians in the wake of the government's formation, saying it was not prepared to maintain contact with a government backed by Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by Israel, the US and much of the West. The US and much of the international community took an opposite stance, and argued that the new Paleostinian government's ministers were not "affiliated" with Hamas. Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
 has said the new government recognizes Israel, accepts past agreements with Israel and renounces terrorism. Hamas spokesmen have said the group's position on Israel, which it seeks to destroy, has not changed.

Some 125 Paleostinian prisoners held in administrative detention in Israel launched a hunger strike seven weeks ago over their imprisonment conditions. UN Secretary General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
 expressed concern
...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended...
 last week over the prisoners' health.

The prisoner issue has also exacerbated existing tensions between Hamas and Fatah. Solidarity protests with the prisoners organized by Hamas across the West Bank were violently suppressed by PA security on Monday, Hamas charged. Hamas MPs Hassan Youssef and Fathi Qar'awi were physically attacked.

According to the website of Hamas daily Al-Resalah, PA security stopped cars in a solidarity procession in Ramallah, confiscating posters and flags brought by the motorists. Policemen also detained journalist Musib Said, confiscating his press card and camera and demanding he delete his photos.

"Reconciliation is at risk due to the behavior of the PA," Hamas MP Nayef Rajoub warned in Al-Resalah on Tuesday. The "premeditated attack" by PA security on the families of hunger strikers was "a clear message to the domestic reconciliation" and "a powerful stab in the back of the prisoner movement," Rajoub charged.

In a statement published on its website Tuesday, Hamas called the assault on its deputies "a serious and unjustified violation that only serves the occupation."

The unpaid salaries of some 50,000 civil servants appointed by Hamas in Gazoo over the past seven years remains another major bone of contention between Hamas and Fatah. In a presser held in Gazoo Monday, Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya called on the unity government to cover Hamas's salaries just as it did the salaries of PA civil servants living in Gazoo -- employees who have abstained from work for years at the behest of Ramallah in protest over Hamas's bloody takeover in 2007.

"How dare the unity government rush to pay the salaries of Ramallah's employees who stopped working seven years ago... while preventing the payment of salaries to those who really worked on the ground during this period? Can this paradox possibly exist even after the [end] of the divide?" wondered Hayya.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Islamic Jihad: Peace process should be pronounced dead
2010-03-13
[Ma'an] Hamas and Palestinian opposition factions organized rallies in Gaza to support the Al-Aqsa Mosque and other holy sites believed to be under Israeli threat, a representative said on Friday.

Demonstrators gathered at mosques throughout Gaza City, walking toward the Field of Palestine Part, then on to the ruins of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Speaking in front of the PLC building, Islamic Jihad leader Muhammad Al-Hindi called on the Arab world "not to give a cover to those who want to give up Palestine," and withdraw their support for US-sponsored "proximity talks."

The Palestinian officials who participated in negotiations in past years must be exposed, Al-Hindi said demandeding a declaration of the failure of the peace process.

Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya addressed the crowd after Al-Hindi, saying "It's time for the Arab and Islamic nations to rise up to protect Al-Aqsa and the holy sites."

Addressing comments to his rival Fatah party, Al-Hayya said, "It's time to launch the resistance in the West Bank, let us unite on the bases of resistance," and called on Palestinians across the country to rise up in defense of Al-Aqsa.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Hamas and Islamic Jihad meet in Gaza
2010-01-20
[Ma'an] Hamas and Islamic Jihad held a meeting late Monday evening in Gaza City to discuss recent developments in Palestinian politics and the Egyptian-sponsored reconciliation document.

In attendance were Nafez Azzam, Muhammad Al-Hindi and Khaled Al-Hindi from Islamic Jihad and Khalil Al-Hayya, Jamal Abu Hashim and Aiman Taha representing Hamas.

"This is a regular meeting between Palestinian factions to study the recent dilemmas posed in Palestinian politics," Azzam told Ma'an during an interview.

Other topics on the agenda included Israeli violations and international involvement aimed at ending inter-Palestinian rivalries, notably between Hamas and Fatah.

Azzam added that "we've seen Hamas' great desire to accomplish reconciliation and end division."

"We've agreed on holding other meetings soon also with other factions to discuss all of this."

Efforts to end Fatah-Hamas rivalry have been stonewalled, as Hamas demands that its amendments be taken into consideration. Meanwhile, Fatah officials say that the reconciliation document is finalized and have accused Hamas of attempting to stay general elections by delaying the ratification of the agreement.

However, Arab nations have intervened to encourage dialogue between the two Palestinian factions. On Sunday, Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Muhammad As-Sabah said that a reconciliation meeting will be held within the next ten days between Abbas and Mash'al, Kuwaiti media reported.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Hamas push to replace Abbas
2009-01-31
Hamas is calling for new leadership to replace the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) dominated by its arch-rival President Mahmoud Abbas and factions loyal to him.

Claiming victory in a devastating 22-day war with Israel in which 100 Palestinians were killed for every Israeli, the group is reasserting control over the enclave and resuming its political challenge to the moderate Abbas.

Several thousand Hamas supporters rallied in Gaza yesterday in support of the call to abolish the PLO, made two days ago by the group's exiled leader, Khalid Meshaal.

Meshaal advocates a new umbrella body to represent Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and in the diaspora. His proposal was echoed in similar statements to cheering crowds yesterday by a senior Hamas political leader, Khalil Al Hayya.

In the first public appearance by a prominent Gaza Hamas leader since Israel's attacked on December 27, Al Hayya said the PLO was "dead", and sent to the "morgue" by those who founded it.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Top Hamas leader emerges from under bed: Proclaims "Victory"
2009-01-30
Nope. No Jooooos, boss. You can come out.
Are you sure?
Yeah, boss. No Jooooos.
A senior member of the Islamist Hamas leadership, which went underground when Israel launched its military offensive in the Gaza Strip a month ago, on Friday made his first public appearance since the fighting ended.
Do I look "defiant"?
Ya look great, boss.
I swear I hear Daffy Duck in the background, just after getting exploded once again, yelling, "makeup!"
Khalil Al-Hayya, one of three survivors of the five best known Hamas leaders, told supporters at a rally that the group had achieved victory in the war and was now engaged in a political battle. "We promised to come out to you either as martyrs or as victors," Hayya told supporters. "Today I come out to you and you are victors."
...and I have seen my shadow which means six more weeks of hiding winter.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh gave an interview to Al Quds television on Thursday from an undisclosed location, and remains underground.
Is it safe? Are the Jooos gone? Are you sure?
Hayya tried to reassure Palestinians whose houses had been destroyed by Israel. "The reconstruction is coming, do not be worried about that," he said, adding the Hamas government intended to pay the salaries of its employees.
...and they always keep there word. Like when they're gonna fight to the last drop of blood, right?
"I tell the resistance fighters, I tell the Qassam fighters, do not drop your weapons, do not put your weapons aside and do not abandon your trenches," Hayya said. "I assure our people that the leaders who led the battle of victory are now leading the battle of politics. We are still in the midst of the battle and we are engaging politically," he said.
Which is marginally safer ...
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
160 held in Hamas raid
2008-07-27
Palestinian Hamas security forces in the Gaza Strip arrested 160 men aligned with the rival Fatah faction yesterday, after an explosion there killed five Hamas gunmen and a girl.

Friday's blast next to a car used by men from the armed wing of Gaza's ruling Hamas killed the girl and three militants. Two others died of wounds in hospital. The blast, the third of its kind in a day, marked one of the biggest flare-ups in internal Gaza violence since Hamas routed the forces of ineffectual Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction to seize control of the territory a year ago.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh convened an emergency cabinet meeting.

Fatah officials said it had no link and blamed it on Hamas infighting.

A group called the Al Awda Brigades, which said it is aligned with Fatah, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Senior Hamas leader Khalil Al Hayya, whose nephew was killed in the blast and whose oldest son was wounded, vowed to punish those responsible.
"We shall have Dire Revenge™!'
Hamas security forces stormed some 40 offices of Fatah throughout the Gaza Strip, raiding more than 40 offices, sporting clubs and charity organisations, confiscating documents and computers. Among those held was Sawah Abu Saif, a Palestinian said to have worked as a cameraman for a German television station, who was arrested as a suspected Fatah activist.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
PLC member: Hamas leaders united in call for dialogue with Fatah
2007-11-04
Ma'an – Hamas leaders unanimously support dialogue with the rival Fatah movement, a prominent Hamas politician said Saturday. Palestinian Legislative Council member Khalil Al Hayya, who represents Gaza City, said he welcomed Friday's meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and three Hamas officials in Ramallah.

Abbas and the Hamas leaders attended Friday prayer together before discussing security issues in the Palestinian presidential compound, the Muqata. Al Hayya said he hoped the meeting would mark the beginning of a process of dialogue that will eventually heal the divisions that have marred Palestinian politics since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in June.

Al Hayya also asked that Fatah cease harassment of Hamas members and their families. The Fatah-dominated Palestinian authority has arrested Hamas activists and broken up Hamas demonstrations in the West Bank. Hamas, for it's part, has also suppressed Fatah activity, sometimes violently, in the Gaza Strip.
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