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Osama Hamdan Ossama Abou Hemdan Hamas Middle East Palestinian Big Shot 20020620  
    Hamas representative in Lebanon. Interview is here.
  Osama Ramadan Hamas Middle East Palestinian Big Shot 20030821  
    Mispelling of Osama Hamdan
  Osama Hamdan Hamas Israel-Palestine Palestinian Big Shot 20030823  
    Hamas representative in Lebanon.

Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Hamas official outlines group's stance on disarmament, truce talks
2025-05-07
[GEO.TV] The senior Hamas
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
 leader has spoken to Drop Site News about the group's position 18 months into the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
 war, discussing prospects for a truce, Israeli demands for disarmament, and the future governance of Gaza, reported Al Jazeera.

Key points from the interview:

  • Hamas rejects any short-term truce that does not include firm commitments to a full Israeli retreat and an end to the war.

  • The group refuses to disarm, as doing so would leave Paleostinians defenceless against displacement. ''You can't talk about de-weaponising the nation who is under occupation, while they are occupied by the most powerful army in the region,'' said Osama Hamdan. He added that Paleostinians have a legal right to armed resistance.

  • Hamas will only surrender its weapons if the war ends and an independent Paleostinian state is established. ''If there was a Paleostinian state, those weapons would be handed to the Paleostinian government,'' he said.

  • The movement is open to a long-term truce — lasting five to seven years — which could help ''build trust'' and bring ''stability''.

  • After the war, Hamas is prepared to step down in favour of an independent or technocratic authority that prioritises Gaza's interests ahead of general elections.

    Hamas says no point in further Gaza truce talks if Israel continues ‘hunger war’

    [IsraelTimes] Terror group official urges international community to pressure Netanyahu to end ‘crimes’ in Strip; France and China pan coming military offensive expected to displace masses

    A senior Hamas
    ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
     official said Tuesday the terror group was no longer interested in truce talks with Israel and urged the international community to halt Israel’s "hunger war" against Gazoo
    ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
    His remarks came as La Belle France and China both condemned Israel’s plans for a major offensive in Gaza that would see the displacement of masses of people and the seizure of territory for an unspecified period.

    Internationally mediated talks for a ceasefire in the war triggered by the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel have stalled, with both sides digging in on mutually unacceptable terms.

    "There is no sense in engaging in talks or considering new ceasefire proposals as long as the hunger war and extermination war continue in the Gaza Strip," former Gaza health minister Basem Naim, the Hamas official, told AFP.

    He said the world must pressure the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the "crimes of hunger, thirst, and killings" in Gaza.

    The comments by Naim, a Hamas political bureau member who is based in Istanbul, came a day after the Israel Defense Forces said expanded operations in Gaza would include moving "most" of its population out of combat areas and to locations where Hamas is not present.

    Nevertheless, Qatar
    ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
    , which has helped mediate previous temporary ceasefires during the war, said Tuesday that talks for a fresh truce are ongoing.

    Qatar remains in "continuous" contact with all parties, foreign ministry front man Majed al-Ansari said, despite major obstacles to a new accord.


    • Link


    Israel-Palestine-Jordan
    Aiming to stymie Trump’s ‘Riviera’ vision, Arab leaders endorse $53 billion Gaza plan
    2025-03-05
    They’re all delusional.
    [IsraelTimes] Egypt’s Sissi presents proposal that would see Gazans remain in Strip during 5-year reconstruction, but avoids difficult questions on Hamas, which US says cannot remain in power
    They’re completely missing the point: even if not in power, if allowed to stay in situ the community will do it all again. But then, Egypt has persuaded itself that they won the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
    Arab leaders adopted an Egyptian reconstruction plan for Gazoo
    ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
     on Tuesday that would cost $53 billion and avoid displacing Paleostinians from the enclave, in contrast to US President Donald Trump
    ...dictatorial for repealing some (but not all) of the diktats of his predecessor, misogynistic because he likes pretty girls, homophobic because he doesn't think gender bending should be mandatory, truly a man for all seasons...
    ’s "Middle East Riviera" vision.

    Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi said the proposal, welcomed in subsequent statements by Hamas
    ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
     and criticized by Israel, had been accepted at the closing of a summit he hosted in Cairo.
    Only Israel’s opinion matters… And President Trump’s.
    Sissi said at the summit that he was certain Trump would be able to achieve peace in the conflict that has devastated the Gaza Strip.

    However,
    there's more than one way to stuff a chicken...
     the agreement did not address the major questions that need to be answered about Gaza’s future regarding the role of Hamas
    …none…
    and which countries will provide the billions of dollars needed for reconstruction.

    Sissi stressed that his country’s reconstruction plan would allow Paleostinians to remain in the war-torn territory.
    No running water, no electricity, no sewer system, very few livable buildings — but lots of rubble, asbestos dust, unstable tunnel remnants, leaking poo ponds, and Hamas warehouses stuffed to the rafters with necessities hoarded away from the population. Why does President al-Sisi want the Gazans to suffer in the midst of squalor instead of letting them escape into the world where they can find jobs and healthy, comfortable places to live?
    He said that independent Paleostinian technocrats unaffiliated with Hamas would run the Strip after an end to the war.
    Israel also refuses to allow anyone related to the Palestinian Authority — which is just the old PLO with a pretty figleaf covering — to run Gaza. How many Gazan unicorns exist who are aligned with neither the PLO nor Hamas?
    The committee would be responsible for the oversight of humanitarian aid and managing the Strip’s affairs for a temporary period, in preparation for the return of the Paleostinian Authority, he said.

    In a statement, Hamas said it welcomed the plan as well as the formation of the Paleostinian committee.
    Uh huh.
    FUTURE OF HAMAS
    There appeared to be divisions among participants over the future of Hamas, which sparked the war with the October 7, 2023 onslaught on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people and took another 251 hostages.

    The UAE, which sees Hamas and other Islamists as an existential threat, wants an immediate and complete disarmament of the terror group, while other Arab countries advocate a gradual approach, a source close to the matter told Rooters.
    No gradualism. No Hamsniks. Let them move to Qatar or Turkey, somewhere far from Gaza.
    A source close to Saudi Arabia
    ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...
    ’s royal court said the continued armed presence of Hamas in Gaza was a stumbling block because of strong objections from the United States and Israel, which would need to sign off on any plan.
    Such perspicacity.
    "President Trump has been clear that Hamas cannot continue to govern Gaza," White House National Security Council front man Brian Hughes said Tuesday in response to Arab leaders’ endorsement of the Egyptian plan. "While the president stands by his bold vision for a post-war Gaza, he welcomes input from our Arab partners in the region. It’s clear his proposals have driven the region to come to the table rather than allow this issue to devolve into further crisis."

    Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the Egyptian plan "fails to address the realities of the situation."

    "It is noteworthy that Hamas’s vicious terror assault isn’t mentioned, and there isn’t even a condemnation of this murderous terrorist entity, despite the documented atrocities," the statement said.
    Precisely.
    It reiterated Israel’s support for Trump’s plan to resettle Gaza’s population elsewhere, describing it as "an opportunity for the Gazooks to have free choice based on their free will," a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again gave his full-throated backing to the proposal, calling it "visionary and innovative."

    The Foreign Ministry statement also urged responsible regional states to "break free from past constraints and collaborate to create a future of stability and security in the region."

    Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty blasted Israel’s rejection as "unacceptable," describing its position as "stubborn and bad boy."
    Too damned bad. This is what losing the war you started looks like.
    "There will be no peace neither to Israel or to the region" without establishing an independent Paleostinian state in accordance with United Nations
    ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks...
     resolutions, he said.
    War it is, then. Egypt must be looking forward to being Lebanon in the next round.
    He said "Israel violates all international law rules ... the international law must be imposed."
    Some key elements were missing in the Egyptian education, if the Egyptian foreign minister is so deluded,
    "No single state should be allowed to impose its will on the international community," Abdelatty said.
    Go back and try again, dude your excellency. Joe Biden no longer lives in the White House. And if you don’t live up to your treaty obligations, America will summarily cut you off.
    Paleostinians, along with the Arab world and many allies of Israel and the US, have condemned Trump’s proposal, rejecting any efforts to expel Gazooks.
    That’s nice.
    ’PRESERVING THE HORIZON OF A TWO-STATE SOLUTION’
    There’s the other fundamental error.
    At Tuesday’s meeting, Sissi also reissued a call for a two-state solution.
    No.
    "There will be no true peace without the establishment of the Paleostinian state," Sissi said during Tuesday’s meeting. "It’s time to adopt the launching of a serious and effective political path that leads to a permanent and lasting solution to the Paleostinian cause according to the resolutions of international legitimacy."
    So sorry, but the Palestinians in general have missed the boat, and then the Gazans holed it and burnt the sunken hulk.
    The Egyptian plan, called "Early Recovery, Reconstruction, Development of Gaza," is based on "preserving the rights, dignity and humanity of the Paleostinian people, and on the horizon of a two-state solution."
    The Palestinian state at this point is far beyond the event horizon by dint of their own efforts, both in Gaza, where they are still holding captives in inhumane conditions, and in the West Bank, where they are busily doing Hamas’s (and Iran’s bidding.
    The Egyptian proposal says it is "illogical" to ignore Paleostinians’ desire to remain on their land.
    Oh well. Anyway…
    It also calls for the continuation of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and the release of Israeli hostages and Paleostinian prisoners.

    The Egyptian document, reviewed by The Times of Israel, envisions a Gaza Administration Committee, made up of independent technocrats, to manage an initial six-month transitional phase. It also urges elections in all Paleostinian areas within a year, if conditions support such a move.
    And now the Handwavium:
    Using colorful AI images, it envisages a series of modern living spaces, agricultural zones, commercial centers and government complexes throughout the Strip. An airport and seaport would also be constructed, according to Egypt’s plan, which would continue until 2030.

    The emir of Qatar
    ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
    , Bahrain’s king, the vice president of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister attended the Cairo confab, as did UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

    Any reconstruction funding would require heavy buy-in from oil-rich Gulf Arab states such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which have the billions of dollars needed. Egypt estimated the plan would cost US$ 53 billion.

    PA Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa said the reconstruction fund would seek international financing as well as oversight and likely be located in the World Bank.

    In a speech at the summit, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said international guarantees were needed that the current temporary ceasefire would remain in place, and supported the PA’s role in governing the strip.
    Israel will not accept the PA. Try again with something else.
    Leaders of the UAE and Qatar did not speak during open sessions of the summit.

    Guterres said he fully supported the Egyptian plan.

    "I welcome and strongly endorse the Arab-led initiative to mobilize support for Gaza’s reconstruction, clearly expressed in this summit," he said. "The UN stands ready to fully cooperate in this endeavor."

    Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
    ...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....>
    , also in attendance, said he too welcomed the plan. The 89-year-old — who has been ruling since winning the last Paleostinian national elections in 2005 — said he is ready to hold presidential and parliamentary elections if circumstances allow, asserting that the PA is the only legitimate governing and military force in the West Bank and Gaza.
    Wrong. The PA is not a legitimate governing force in either the West Bank or Gaza.
    Abbas has repeatedly promised to hold elections and then backtracked over the years.
    And that’s why. If the long-overdue elections were ever actually held, Hamas would win in the West Bank, no matter what happened in Gaza.
    Trump triggered surprise and indignation when he first floated his idea last month for the United States to "take over" the Gaza Strip and turn it into the "Riviera of the Middle East" while forcing its Paleostinian residents to relocate to Egypt, Jordan and elsewhere.

    Trump has since appeared to soften his stance, saying he was "not forcing" the plan, which experts have said could violate international law.

    Netanyahu has embraced the Trump plan, however, saying that Israel is "committed" to it. Working groups have begun fleshing out the plan, Israeli officials told The Times of Israel.

    HAMAS WON’T LET ’EXTERNAL FORCES’ DETERMINE GAZA’S FUTURE
    Hamas front man Hazem Qassem said Tuesday that the terror group will only accept an Arab-led plan for postwar reconstruction of Gaza that wins the support of Paleostinians in the enclave, rejecting "external forces" determining the future of the Strip.

    "Our position is clear, any plans for Gaza’s future... must be reached through national consensus, and we will facilitate the process," Qassem told Ottoman Turkish news outlet Anadolu.

    Earlier, leading Hamas figure Sami Abu Zuhri
    ...a senior spokesman for Hamas. Zuhri gained notoriety in 2006 when he dropped his money belt containing somewhere between 640,000 and 900,000 euros, which was confiscated by Paleostinian security and customs officials at a routine border crossing from Egypt to Gaza. The news brought competing Hamas and Fatah forces to the crossing checkpoint for an epic face-making and hollering contest...
     said the terror group would not disarm, and nor would other armed Paleostinian organizations. "Any talk about the resistance’s weapons is nonsense. The resistance’s weapons are a red line for Hamas and all resistance factions," Abu Zuhri said, speaking in the context of potential negotiations to end the current ceasefire.
    And there it is.
    AMBITIOUS FRAMEWORK, MISSING KEY SPECIFICS
    The Egyptian plan doesn’t explain what Hamas’s fate would be, or how to prevent the terror group from intimidating officials or firing rockets at Israel.
    Back to the drawing board.
    It does call for Egypt and Jordan to train Paleostinian police, and a draft version encouraged the examination of an international force in the West Bank and Gaza.
    That’s a detail, not the framework.
    In the medium term, Israel and the Paleostinian Authority would negotiate final status issues.
    No.
    The early recovery phase would last six months and cost $3 billion, followed by a five-year reconstruction phase at a cost of $53 billion.

    The plan takes its inspiration from the reconstruction of Hiroshima and Berlin, cities devastated by Allied attacks in World War II. They are now thriving, modern cities.
    Before they were rebuilt, the countries had to surrender completely, disarm, and be de-Nazified for the Germans and the emperor lost his sacred status for Japan. Where is that in this plan?
    Despite lacking solutions to fundamental challenges like Hamas’s role, the ambitious plan is concerned with issues like walkability, green buildings and smart cities.

    It also doesn’t leave the Mediterranean resorts only to Trump’s plan. The Egyptian program also calls for resorts and tourist villages on the beach.

    It plans for 120 hospitals and clinics to be constructed across the Strip.

    The Cairo summit is taking place as Israel and Hamas find themselves at an impasse over the future of a fragile hostage-ceasefire deal that began on January 19.

    The ceasefire’s first phase saw 33 Israeli hostages released, eight of them dead, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Paleostinian prisoners, including many convicted bully boyz serving hefty jail sentences. Five Thai nationals held hostage in the Gaza Strip were freed separately during that period.

    While Israel said it backed an extension of the first phase until mid-April — including the release of the remaining 59 hostages in two batches toward the beginning and end of the Ramadan and Passover holidays that run through March and until April 19 — Hamas has accused Israel of violating the original deal and has insisted on continuing to the second stage.

    Netanyahu on Monday warned Hamas that "there will be consequences that you cannot imagine" if the hostages still held by bully boyz were not released.

    A senior Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, accused Israel of actively sabotaging the ceasefire, calling its push for an extension "a blatant attempt to... avoid entering into negotiations for the second phase."

    Update at 11:30 a.m.ET: the full text of the proposal can be read here.
    Link


    Israel-Palestine-Jordan
    Senior Hamas official: I wouldn’t have backed Oct. 7 if I’d known outcome for Gaza
    2025-02-25
    [IsraelTimes] Moussa Abu Marzouk says ‘impossible’ to call Gaza war a victory for terror group, says he’s open to discussing its disarmament; Hamas: Words taken out of context, don’t represent us

    Senior Hamas
    ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
     politburo member Moussa Abu Marzouk said he would not have backed the October 7, 2023, invasion and onslaught in southern Israel if he had known what the consequences would be for the Gazoo
    ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
     Strip, in an interview with The New York Times

    ...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
     that was conducted on Friday and published on Monday.

    The October 7 attack — in which thousands of Hamas-led faceless myrmidons burst across the Gaza-Israel border, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages, amid rampant acts of brutality and sexual assault — sparked the subsequent war in Gaza, which has devastated the enclave, seen tens of thousands killed, and prompted the US president to call for the forced relocation of the more than 2 million residents of the Strip.

    The war has also, through fighting on other fronts, significantly weakened Iran’s so-called "Axis of Resistance®," devastating the Hezbollah terror group in Leb
    ...Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects....
    , and indirectly contributing to the collapse of the Iran-backed Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
    Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs...
     regime in Syria.

    "If it was expected that what happened would happen, there wouldn’t have been October 7," Abu Marzouk said, asserting that — though he claimed to not have been privy to the exact details of the planned assault — he could not have brought himself to approve it, knowing what he knows now.
    Y’all assumed that naturally Allah would protect his best beloveds from any serious repercussions, and thus President Biden’s America, the EU, and the Moslem governments would force Israel to surrender. But it turns out Allah just isn’t that into you, and after what you and your little friends did on 10/7, the Israelis gave up on the idea that there was anyone on your side worth bargaining with. Though they were willing to work with you if you’d learnt anything from the experience, the stupid games you played these past two weeks means once the hostages are recovered, you’re toast.
    The statement of regret marked a departure from previous statements by Hamas officials. A few weeks after the invasion, for example, politburo member Ghazi Hamad publicly declared that October 7 was "just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth," saying, "we are ready to pay" the price, and vowing to continue until Israel was totally annihilated.
    A fatal misjudgment, that.
    In the weeks since a hostage release-ceasefire deal was reached last month, Hamas and its allies have also repeatedly called the war a "victory" for their cause.

    Indeed, Abu Marzouk’s remarks were quickly countered by Hamas front man Hazem Qassem, who said: "The occupation’s aggressive and destructive behavior is the cause of the destruction in Gaza. The October 7 epic marks a strategic turning point in the Paleostinian national struggle."

    In a statement issued a short while later by the group itself, Hamas claimed Abu Marzouk’s comments were "incorrect and taken out of context."
    Oh well. It was nice to think learning had happened, but clearly that’s not permitted. Now we know.
    "The interview was conducted a few days ago and the published statements did not reflect the full content of the answers," the terror group contended.

    In the interview, Abu Marzouk said Hamas’s survival, despite Israel’s campaign in Gaza, constituted a "kind of victory." He compared the terror group, which has been the de facto government of Gaza since ousting the Paleostinian Authority’s main Fatah faction in a 2007 coup, to a regular person who has survived a boxing match with heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. But he said that in absolute terms, it would be "unacceptable" to call the war a win for the terror group.

    "We’re talking about a party [Israel] that lost control of itself and took Dire Revenge against everything," Abu Marzouk claimed. "That is not a victory under any circumstances."
    Sez you. We disagree.
    ABU MARZOUK SAYS OPEN TO TALKING DISARMAMENT
    In the interview, Abu Marzouk also said he was open to discussing the potential disarmament of the terror group in Gaza, saying that, "We are ready to speak about every issue," and, "Any issue that is put on the table, we need to speak about it." He declined, however, to answer specific questions about what a compromise on disarmament might look like.

    The comments seemed to contradict more hardline statements from other public leaders of late, such as politburo member Osama Hamdan, who said this month that "the weapons of the resistance" were non-negotiable.

    Asked about Hamdan’s remarks, Abu Marzouk told The New York Times that no one leader could set the organization’s agenda.

    Qassem, the Hamas front man, also rejected the idea of disarmament, saying: "We hold onto our resistance weapon as a legitimate right, and what was attributed to Moussa Abu Marzouk does not represent the movement’s stance. Resistance® in all its forms is a legitimate right for our people until liberation and return."

    Asked about the ongoing, fragile hostage release-ceasefire deal, which has paused fighting in the Strip as Hamas has freed captives who were mostly kidnapped on October 7 and Israel has set free over a thousand Paleostinian security prisoners, including many terror convicts, Abu Marzouk said he was open to extending the three-part deal’s first phase, which is currently slated to end on Saturday.

    He said, however, that the group would demand far more security prisoners released in exchange for each of the remaining hostages than it had for those released in the past, noting that Hamas considers all the remaining living captives — including those who are in fact civilians — to be soldiers.

    Abu Marzouk suggested 500-to-1 and 1,000-to-1 as possible prisoner-to-hostage ratios for the remaining captives, which are likely to be rejected out of hand by Israel.

    The interview was conducted before Israel’s decision on Saturday to freeze the release of 602 security inmates in exchange for six living hostages, after five of those hostages were released in propaganda ceremonies that the state called "humiliations."

    Abu Marzouk added that Hamas is also open to releasing all the hostages at once, in exchange for an end to the war and the release of all Paleostinian prisoners — terms which Israel has rejected.

    IDF RESPONDS TO ROCKET FIRE, AS CEASEFIRE UP IN THE AIR
    With the first phase of the deal set to end Saturday, negotiations are ongoing for the second phase, which envisions Hamas releasing all remaining living hostages — believed to be at least 24 of the 63 captives — in exchange for several thousand Paleostinian security prisoners, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and a permanent end to the war.

    US President Donald Trump
    ...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US...
    ’s Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff said Sunday that, "We will get to phase two... I think it’s going to happen," but called any Hamas role in the postwar government of the Strip a "red line."

    Israeli leaders have repeatedly stressed in recent days that there are battle plans ready in the event that the deal should collapse and fighting resume.

    On Monday, the Israel Defense Forces struck a rocket launching site in Gaza, from which a rocket had been fired at Israel but fell short in the Strip, the military said. It added that a second rocket launch site in the area was also targeted.
    Related:
    Moussa Abu Marzouk 02/04/2025 Hamas says Russian national Maxim Herkin to be prioritized in deal’s 2nd stage
    Moussa Abu Marzouk 01/27/2025 Senior Hamas official says group could step away from governing post-war Gaza, willing to enter talks with US on issue
    Moussa Abu Marzouk 10/25/2024 Report: Delegation from Moscow arrived in Israel today to discuss release of two Russian-Israeli hostages

    Related:
    Ghazi Hamad 11/20/2024 US slaps fresh sanctions on six senior Hamas officials
    Ghazi Hamad 01/29/2024 NYT: Much of Hamas’s explosives comes from IDF fire that failed to detonate — report
    Ghazi Hamad 01/15/2024 Senior Hamas officials flee Lebanon after killing of terror group deputy Arouri – report

    Related:
    Osama Hamdan 01/08/2025 Trump’s Mideast envoy to visit Qatar, claiming hostage deal on verge of completion
    Osama Hamdan 01/08/2025 Hamas official vows legal action against Blinken for ‘partnership’ in Israeli ‘crimes’
    Osama Hamdan 01/08/2025 Soldier killed fighting in Gaza Tuesday as IDF withdraws brigade from northern Strip

    Link


    Israel-Palestine-Jordan
    Trump’s Mideast envoy to visit Qatar, claiming hostage deal on verge of completion
    2025-01-08
    [IsraelTimes] While Witkoff says progress made in Doha, Hamas stands by demand for permanent end to war, which Israel rejects; president-elect: ‘It won’t be good for anyone’ if no deal by Jan. 20

    Incoming US envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff announced Tuesday that he will travel to Doha later this week, saying a hostage deal being mediated by Qatar
    ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
     is on the verge of completion, as US President-elect Donald Trump
    ...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party...
     again warned "all hell will break loose" in the region if an agreement between Israel and Hamas
    ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
     is not reached by his January 20 inauguration.

    "We’re making a lot of progress, and I don’t want to say too much because I think they’re doing a really good job back in Doha. I’m leaving tomorrow to go back to Doha, but I think that we’ve had some really great progress, and I’m really hopeful that by the inaugural, we’ll have some good things to announce on behalf of the president," Witkoff said, after Trump called on him to provide an update on the negotiations during a presser at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

    Witkoff said he would leave for Qatar either Tuesday or Wednesday night. Delegations from Israel and Hamas have been in the Gulf state since the weekend.

    While Trump and his team are not formally part of the ongoing negotiations, they have been cooperating with the outgoing Biden administration, and Witkoff has traveled to the region several times since his appointment in November.

    "We’re working in tandem in a really good way; but it’s the president — his reputation, the things that he has said — that [is] driving this negotiation; so hopefully it’ll all work out, and we’ll save some lives," Witkoff added. "The red lines [Trump] put out there — that’s driving this negotiation."

    Witkoff appeared to be referring to Trump’s December 3 Truth Social post in which he threatened "ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East," if the 100 remaining hostages in Gazoo
    ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
     weren’t released by January 20.

    Pressed on what has been holding up the talks to date, Witkoff declined to get into specifics. "I believe we’ve been on the verge of [a deal]. I don’t want to discuss what’s delayed it — no point to be negative in any way."

    Asked whether the parties are waiting to reach a deal until Trump is in office, Witkoff responded, "No, I think they heard him loud and clear. [This] better get done by the inaugural."

    At this point, Trump piped back in to reissue his threat to Hamas.

    "All hell will break out in the Middle East, and it will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good — frankly —for anyone," Trump said.

    Witkoff addressed several news hounds after the presser, and one quoted him as saying the deal that the mediators are trying to ink before the inauguration would last 42 days, in what would be the first time that someone involved in the negotiations has gone on the record to specify the exact number of days that the ceasefire agreement would last. The deal was previously understood to extend for around six or seven weeks.

    The Trump envoy said Qatar is leading the mediation effort along with the Biden White House’s Mideast czar Brett McGurk, who is also in Doha. Witkoff made a point of praising Qatar’s mediation efforts, while not mentioning Egypt, which is another mediator, but has apparently played less of a central role in this latest round of talks.

    Witkoff is a real estate executive who also has business ties to sovereign wealth funds in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

    HAMAS OFFICIAL URGES TRUMP TO BE MORE ’DIPLOMATIC’
    Funny!
    Israel and Hamas meanwhile accused each other of blocking a deal by adhering to conditions that torpedoed all previous negotiations.

    Hamas said it would free its remaining hostages only if Israel agrees to end the war and withdraw all its troops from the Gaza Strip. Israel says it will not end the war until Hamas is dismantled and all hostages are free.

    "Hamas is the only obstacle to the release of the hostages," the director general of Israel’s foreign ministry, Eden Bar Tal, told a briefing with news hounds, saying Israel was fully committed to reaching a deal.

    Hamas official Osama Hamdan, who held a news conference in Algiers, said Israel was to blame for undermining all efforts to reach a deal.

    While he said he would not give details about the latest round of negotiations, he reiterated the Hamas conditions of "a complete end to the aggression and a full withdrawal from lands the occupation invaded."

    Commenting on Trump’s threat that there would be "hell to pay" unless all hostages were freed before the inauguration, Hamdan said, "I think the US president must make more disciplined and diplomatic statements."

    Hamdan added that Hamas and its supporters in Gaza are not afraid of Trump’s threats "because they already live in hell" in the Strip.

    On Monday, a forum representing the vast majority of hostage families held a presser during which relatives of four captives called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to pursue a comprehensive deal that would see all of their loved ones released, blasting the framework Jerusalem is currently pursuing that would only free roughly one-third of the captives during a temporary ceasefire.

    While Hamas has long pushed for a permanent ceasefire, officials familiar with the talks have told The Times of Israel that the terror group has indicated willingness in recent weeks to prioritize the first stage of the three-phase deal that has been under discussion since May.

    A senior Arab diplomat said on Sunday that Hamas had approved a list of 34 hostages it was prepared to free as part of the deal. The list included female Israeli soldiers, plus elderly, female and minor-aged civilians, Rooters reported, citing a Hamas official.

    A Saudi news outlet subsequently published what it said was the aforementioned list. Netanyahu’s office says it has yet to receive any list from Hamas, which it says is a precondition for any deal to advance.

    Some of the names on the list published in Arabic media were of slain hostages. Hamas has insisted that it does not know where all of the hostages are, but would be able to ascertain their locations and conditions if Israel agrees to a brief ceasefire. Israel has rejected the idea, insisting that Hamas knows where all of the hostages are.

    Israel is seeking to maximize the number of living hostages who will be released as part of the deal, while Hamas is looking to hold onto as many hostages as possible, as long as Israel plans to resume fighting once the temporary ceasefire is over. Israeli intelligence assesses that as many as half of the hostages are still alive.

    The deal being discussed would see the release of the remaining female, elderly and maimed hostages in exchange for hundreds of Paleostinian security prisoners and a partial IDF withdrawal from Gaza.

    Netanyahu’s office has preferred the temporary ceasefire framework, with the premier arguing that ending the war permanently in exchange for all of the hostages would allow Hamas to regain control of Gaza. Repeated polls have indicated that the majority of the Israeli public rejects Netanyahu’s approach.

    Much of Israel’s security establishment has maintained that Netanyahu’s prosecution of the war contains no exit strategy since he has refused to advance a viable alternative to Hamas’s rule, thereby allowing the terror group to repeatedly return to areas briefly cleared by the IDF. The security establishment and the international community have pushed for allowing the Paleostinian Authority, which enjoys limited governing powers over parts of the West Bank, to gain a foothold in Gaza in order to replace Hamas.

    Netanyahu has rejected the idea out of hand, likening the PA — which backs a two-state solution — to Hamas. His far-right coalition partners have backed collapsing the PA entirely and would likely threaten to collapse the government if he considers empowering Ramallah.

    The security establishment has also backed a more comprehensive deal to free the hostages, arguing that the IDF can return to Gaza if need be and that putting off the release of two-thirds of the hostages not freed in a temporary deal would likely be a death sentence
    ...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead...
     for them.

    The ceasefire that US, Qatari, and Egyptian mediators are trying to advance is still within the three-staged framework, but Israel this time around is much more open about the second and third phases not coming immediately after the first one.

    Hamas is demanding assurances from the mediators that there will be some linkage between the first and subsequent phases, as it seeks a permanent ceasefire. Qatar hosted Israeli and Hamas delegations over the weekend for talks, but no breakthroughs have been reported.

    IDF THREATENS MORE MILITARY PRESSURE TO BREAK HAMAS
    Earlier Tuesday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi told officers during a visit to northern Gaza’s Jabalia that the military was working to bring Hamas "to the point where it will understand that it needs to [release] all the hostages, otherwise the very professional work you are doing will continue and continue, and it means more prisoners and more dead operatives."

    "I look at the situation that Hamas is in, they see every day what you are doing to them and they understand that this thing is close to being unbearable," Halevi said.

    For over a year, Israeli officials have insisted that military pressure is what will convince Hamas to release the hostages. Military pressure has indeed intensified since the first hostage deal was reached in November 2023 when over 100 captives were released during a week-long pause in the fighting. Since then, though, the only hostages freed were seven in three separate rescue operations. Other hostages were executed by Hamas as they identified IDF troops approaching, and some were accidentally killed in Israeli Arclight airstrike
    ...KABOOM!...
    s. The IDF did recover the bodies of roughly three dozen slain hostages.

    Israeli military strikes killed at least 10 Paleostinians across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, medics said, as the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza called for international donors to immediately provide fuel it said was needed to maintain medical services.

    One of those strikes killed four people in a house in Beach camp in Gaza City, while the remaining six were killed in separate strikes across the enclave, medics said.

    The health ministry said hospitals were running out of fuel to operate generators and maintain medical services across Gaza because of Israeli restrictions.

    Israel has repeatedly said it facilitated the delivery of fuel and medical supplies to hospitals in the enclave, even in areas where forces have active operations.

    On Tuesday, the military said its forces had detained 240 Paleostinians in a raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza last month, and they had provided "substantial intelligence."

    The military released footage of the interrogation of a purported Hamas bad boy who detailed how snuffies "operated from the hospital area" and transferred weapons to and from it.
    Related:
    Steve Witkoff 01/04/2025 ‘Let’s see what happens’: Trump taps ex-State Dept. spokeswoman Ortagus as deputy Mideast envoy
    Steve Witkoff 12/07/2024 Joe must say NO to White House pardon party for Anthony Fauci, Mark Milley, Adam Schiff
    Steve Witkoff 12/06/2024 Israeli official: Egypt has proposed hostage deal with extended truce, not end to war

    Link


    Israel-Palestine-Jordan
    Hamas official vows legal action against Blinken for ‘partnership’ in Israeli ‘crimes’
    2025-01-08
    [IsraelTimes] US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
    ...71st United States secretary of state and a leading light of the corrupt and inept Biden administration. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under the corrupt and inept Obama administration. He advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while serving as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008. He was a foreign policy advisor for the Biden 2008 presidential campaign. During his tenure in the Obama administration, Blinken helped craft B.O.'s policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the nuclear program of Iran. We all saw how well each of those worked. After leaving government service, Blinken moved into the private sector, co-founding WestExec Advisors, a lobbying firm...
     will be prosecuted for his role in the war in Gazoo, says a senior Hamas
    ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
     official.

    "His statements are misleading and we do not trust them, and his partnership in the crimes against our people will be pursued legally," threatens Hamas politburo member Osama Hamdan at a presser in Algeria, calling Blinken "a partner in the war of extermination."

    In a weekend interview with The New York Times

    ...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
    , Blinken put the blame squarely on Hamas for the failure to reach a hostage release agreement.

    "What we’ve seen time and again is Hamas not concluding a deal that it should have concluded," Blinken said.

    "Why there hasn’t been a unanimous chorus around the world for Hamas to put down its weapons, to give up the hostages, to surrender — I don’t know what the answer is to that. Israel, on various occasions, has offered safe passage to Hamas’s leadership and fighters out of Gaza. Where is the world? Where is the world saying, Yeah, do that! End this! Stop the suffering of people that you brought on!" he said.

    Hamdan claims that negotiations with Israel have proven that the only way to achieve rights for the Paleostinians is by force.

    "We are determined to stop the aggression and for the enemy to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, and for relief and reconstruction to be without Israeli conditions," says Hamdan. "We hope that this will be achieved as soon as possible."

    He calls for a "national committee" to manage Gaza and "block the path of every corrupt argument that seeks to oppress our people."

    Indirect talks on a potential hostage deal between Israel and Hamas continue in Qatar
    ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
    , but progress has been slow.

    Hamdan says that Hamas hopes that Syria "will remain in the position of resistance" due to Israel’s control of the Golan Heights and beyond. "One of the most important values ​​launched by al-Aqsa Flood [the Hamas name for the October 7, 2023, terror onslaught] is that peoples will not be liberated except through resistance."

    Referring to a wave of legal complaints against IDF soldiers vacationing abroad, Hamdan says that "pursuing Zionist war criminals is a Paleostinian national goal and a goal for all free people in the world. Those who raised the case in Brazil and elsewhere are people whose consciences pushed them to take action against the crimes of the occupation. Those who commit crimes of genocide must be pursued all over the world."
    Link


    Israel-Palestine-Jordan
    Soldier killed fighting in Gaza Tuesday as IDF withdraws brigade from northern Strip
    2025-01-08
    [IsraelTimes] Staff Sgt. Ido Samiach, 20, slain in battle, bringing ground op death toll to 398; military says after months in Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, Kfir Brigade preparing for other ops

    An IDF soldier was killed on Tuesday fighting in Gazoo
    ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
    , as the military announced it was pulling a brigade from the northern Strip in order to prepare for future operations.

    The slain soldier was named as Staff Sgt. Ido Samiach, 20, a team sergeant in the Nahal Brigade’s reconnaissance unit, from Ganei Tikva, killed in northern Gaza.

    The previous day, two other soldiers — Cpt. Eitan Israel Shiknazi, 24, and Maj. Dvir Zion Revah, 28 — were killed fighting in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun. The latest death brings Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas
    ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
     in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip to 398.

    The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry claimed Tuesday that 31 people were killed in the Strip over the past 24 hours, including four killed in an Arclight airstrike
    ...KABOOM!...
     on a house in Gaza City.

    Also Tuesday, the IDF said the Kfir Brigade has been withdrawn from the northern Gaza Strip after 64 days of fighting, though an operation in the area led by the 162nd Division is still ongoing. According to the IDF, the Kfir Brigade killed more than 300 terror operatives during their operations in the towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun and in the Sheikh Zayed neighborhood.

    Among the dead operatives are many prominent members of terror groups, including some who participated in the October 7, 2023, onslaught, the IDF said.

    During the two-month operation, 12 soldiers with the brigade were killed in six separate incidents of fighting, and dozens more were maimed, though many have since returned to service, according to the IDF.

    The military said the brigade’s operations were aimed at removing threats to residents of Israeli communities close to the Gaza border in the Strip’s north.

    The brigade was responsible for demolishing the so-called officers’ neighborhood, where Hamas commanders had lived. The residential complex of high-rise towers had served as a "central terror complex" with anti-tank firing positions, booby traps, tunnels and rocket launchers aimed at Israel, according to the military.

    The IDF said the brigade demolished other Hamas infrastructure, including 7.5 kilometers’ (4.6 miles’) worth of tunnels, and captured numerous weapons. The Kfir Brigade is now preparing for future operations in Gaza, the IDF said, including being deployed to the Philadelphi Corridor in the Strip’s south.

    Meanwhile COGAT, the Israeli government’s liaison to the Paleostinians, said Tuesday that it had facilitated the transfer of some 1,100 truckloads of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip over the past week.

    "In accordance with a directive of the political echelon, efforts to transfer aid to the Gaza Strip continue in coordination with COGAT," it said in a statement. "As part of these efforts, over 1,070 humanitarian aid trucks carrying food, water, medical supplies, and shelter equipment were brought into Gaza over the past week, with more than 1,100 trucks unloaded on the Gazook side of the crossings."

    COGAT vowed to "continue working to allow and facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip in collaboration with aid organizations and the international community." It said that all of the shipments were thoroughly inspected by the Defense Ministry’s Land Crossings Authority.

    A Hamas official on Tuesday reiterated the group’s long-held demand for Israel to completely end its war in Gaza in order to reach any deal to free the 100 hostages still held there.

    Hamas official Osama Hamdan, who held a news conference in Algiers, said Israel was to blame for undermining all efforts to reach a deal.

    While he said he would not give details about the latest round of negotiations, he reiterated the Hamas conditions of "a complete end to the aggression and a full withdrawal from lands the occupation invaded."

    Commenting on US President-elect Donald Trump
    ...Oh, noze! Not him!...
    ’s threat that there would be "hell to pay" unless all hostages were freed before the inauguration, Hamdan said: "I think the US president must make more disciplined and diplomatic statements."
    Link


    Israel-Palestine-Jordan
    Hamas claims Kamal Adwan hospital under Zionist siege contains no fighters
    2024-12-29
    [HODHODYEMENNEWS.NET] Hamas
    ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
     official, Osama Hamdan, stressed that Kamal Adwan Hospital has been exposed to a massacre since 75 days, confirming that there are no fighters inside the medical center.

    In a TV interview, Hamdan added that the Israeli plots to end all manifestations of civilian steadfastness in northern Gazoo
    ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
    On the 449th day of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, the Paleostinian resistance has struck back against the Israeli occupation forces, even as the latter continue their brutal attacks on hospitals and civilians in the besieged territory. Hamdan noted that Hamas had proposed a deal which stipulates a complete ceasefire, gradual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and a full prisoner swap.

    ''However,
    Switzerland makes more than cheese...
     Netanyahu's government rejected the proposal.''

    The Paleostinian resistance continued on Friday attacking the Zionist occupation forces in Gaza. A Qassam fighter managed to blow himself up with an boom belt in a Zionist force of 5 soldiers, killing and wounding them. As soon as the rescue forces arrived at the scene, al-Qassam Brigades fighters sniped two of them and showered them with a number of Zionist-made hand grenades in the Tel al-Zaatar area, east of the Jabalia camp, north of the Strip. al-Quds Brigades fighters, for their part, targeted the Israeli occupation forces in Jabalia camp with artillery shells.
    Link


    Israel-Palestine-Jordan
    Isolated Hamas faces collapsing negotiating stance after drastic Trump threat
    2024-12-06
    [IsraelTimes] Terror group pinned hopes of salvation on the Iranian axis and world pressure on Israel, but now has just a few weeks until an unpredictable and angry US president returns

    Earlier this week, two days after Hamas
    ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
     released a propaganda video showing American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander pleading with Donald Trump
    ...The Hero of Butler, Pennsylvania...
     to secure his release, the American president-elect typed out a message that was sure to make the terror group and its backers in Iran
    ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
    take notice.

    "Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violent mostly peacefully, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire world, in the Middle East — but it’s all talk and no action!" Trump wrote Monday on his Truth Social platform, without mentioning Israel or the Paleostinian terror group by name.

    "Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity," he continued.

    The message was posted by a famously voluble leader, but it should not be underestimated.

    It comes at the worst possible time for Hamas, and could be what is needed to finally break the terror group’s unwillingness to recognize the weakness of its position in hostage talks.

    SINWAR’S THREE BETS
    For much of the duration of war that erupted on October 7, 2023, Hamas — under the guidance of the late Yahya Sinwar — believed its bargaining position was only improving with time. Once its leaders recognized they had withstood the height of Israel’s military offensive in early 2024, Hamas staked its hopes on three developments.

    First, Sinwar and his senior aides hoped throughout that the expansion of the conflict with Hezbollah and Iran would force Israel to sue for a ceasefire in Gazoo
    ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
     in order to avoid a multifront war that would exact too high a toll on its soldiers and home front.

    Second, they also believed that international pressure — from the US and Western allies, the United Nations
    ...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society...
     and bodies like the international courts in The Hague — would force Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a hostage deal that would leave Hamas standing in Gaza, and in a position to rebuild both its grip on the territory and its military force.

    "We have the Israelis right where we want them," Sinwar told other Hamas leaders, according to a June report in The Wall Street Journal. The higher the civilian corpse count in Gaza, the more pressure would be put on Israel, he said.

    Government hostage point-man Gal Hirsch argued in a recent speech that there was a "direct and immediate connection between pressure on Israel and Hamas’s appetite for negotiations."

    "Hamas identifies every ’daylight,’ every sliver of light, and whenever it identifies ideas like ’we won’t give you ammunition,’ arms embargoes, removing reservations about the ICC [cases], this doesn’t help us to reach hostage deal," Hirsch said at Reichman University.

    As for the third factor, Sinwar, a close observer of Israeli politics, had certainly noticed the growing domestic anger at Netanyahu as the months passed. Protests by hostages’ families and their allies merged with anti-Netanyahu demonstrations, and a growing number of Israelis were calling for an end to the war without Hamas routed — if it meant the hostages would come home.

    Shortly before his death in mid-October, Sinwar told Hamas’s leadership that a long war against Israel was beneficial. "The longer it lasts, the closer we get to liberation," senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan recounted Sinwar saying.

    Sinwar is now dead, but those making decisions in his place did not immediately seem willing to make any major concessions, either — at least not until recent developments knocked the pillars out from under Hamas’s position.

    TABLES TURNING
    When Hezbollah began assaulting Israel to support Hamas in October 2023, it vowed to continue to do so as long as the war in Gaza continued. This past September, Jerusalem reached the limit of its patience and launched a massive offensive against the group. After being hammered by Israel via air, ground, and pager, the maimed terror militia last week threw in the towel without a ceasefire in Gaza, abandoning its previous position and leaving Hamas in the lurch.

    And though Iran’s willingness to strike Israel directly with ballistic missiles twice in the past year was sure to raise Hamas’s hopes of salvation, Tehran has so far not made good on its promise to strike a third time. And with the Bashir al-Assad regime in Syria under new military pressure from rebels, the Islamic Theocratic Republic appears to have its hands full trying to avoid losing another key member of its axis.

    Following Trump’s victory in the US elections, international pressure on Israel is likely to wane, with Netanyahu expecting a more reliable veto in the United Nations Security Council, a quicker flow of key weapons and intense pressure on the International Criminal Court as it goes after the Israeli leadership.

    Domestic opposition to Netanyahu isn’t going to push him to a deal either. Firing defense minister Yoav Gallant removed the chief internal advocate of an urgent deal, and bringing in Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope party stabilized the coalition.

    Perhaps, over time, the protest movement’s pressure on Netanyahu, with its carefully chosen slogan of "Bring them home now!" could have gained enough traction in the public.

    But Hamas no longer has time on its side.

    THE PRESSURE IS ON
    In a little over six weeks, Trump’s deadline will arrive. His slogan, which puts the onus squarely on Hamas, seems to be "Release them now!"

    It’s not clear what Trump might do to back up his threat, but his disdain for norms makes his ultimatum credible in the region. He could make Iran pay for Hamas’s intransigence through sanctions, strikes on oil and gas sites, or even attacks on Revolutionary Guards forces and Shia militias outside Iran.

    Trump is unlikely to order strikes against Hamas itself in Gaza, where Israel is handling the fighting. However,
    some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them...
     he could see to it that Hamas leaders abroad have no comfortable home in the region, and could provide Israel with the means to target them as they flee The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
    ...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire...
     and other countries they’ve called home in recent years.

    And, of course, he could give Israel the green light to carry out new, stepped-up raids in Gaza, with less concern for humanitarian aid reaching civilians.

    Netanyahu on Tuesday unsurprisingly hailed Trump’s "very strong statement," noting that the US president-elect had made it clear "that there is one party responsible for this situation — and that is Hamas. Hamas must release the hostages." Trump, said an appreciative Netanyahu, "put the emphasis in the right place — on Hamas, and not on the Israeli government, as is customary in some places."

    Apparent cracks in Hamas’s resolve have already been showing. Last week, The New York Times

    ...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
     reported that the group was expressing increased flexibility in its demands.

    Citing two people familiar with the terror group’s thinking, the report said leaders of the terror group have been discussing allowing Israel to maintain a temporary presence in the Philadelphi Corridor, the strategic border area between Egypt and Gaza where Netanyahu has insisted Israel must retain control.

    According to the New York Times report, "reality started to sink in" for Hamas after Sinwar’s death in October, as it became clear that Iran was not looking to enter into direct conflict with Israel, and that Hezbollah was being hit hard by the IDF.

    But even in Hamas’s new, perilous reality, the fundamental gulf separating Israel’s red lines from Hamas’s core demands remains. The terror group continues to insist that in any hostage-release deal, the IDF will end up fully withdrawing from Gaza, and Hamas leaders and operatives will remain in the Strip, poised to slowly rebuild themselves over time. Israel sees that outcome as a loss, letting the perpetrators of October 7 survive and threaten it once more.

    Now, with Trump making his desires crystal clear, Hamas has a decision to make.

    It could use the next few weeks to get the best deal it can, allowing Israel to retain a much-reduced troop presence in Gaza, which it hopes will disappear in time under domestic or international pressure, when other countries increasingly see IDF forces in Gaza as part of an occupation that stands in the way of the Strip’s reconstruction.

    Or it can continue to hold on to the hostages and the hope that Netanyahu will eventually break, while it faces the unpredictable commander-in-chief of the world’s most powerful military — a man who famously doesn’t like being refused.
    Link


    Israel-Palestine-Jordan
    Increasingly flexible Hamas said open to temporary IDF presence at Gaza-Egypt border
    2024-11-29
    [IsraelTimes] As long-moribund ceasefire talks ramp up, New York Times says terror group may give up core demands after ‘reality started to sink in’ following Sinwar’s death and truce in Lebanon

    Hamas
    ..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,...
     is displaying increased flexibility in long-stalled talks for an elusive ceasefire and hostage deal in the Gazoo
    ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
     Strip, and may agree to the Israel Defense Forces temporarily remaining on the enclave’s border with Egypt, a report said Thursday.

    Citing unnamed US officials, The New York Times

    ...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
     reported that the Paleostinian terror group could give up on core demands and accept a ceasefire deal that Israel could back.
    Given the New York Times is “reporting” it, this may or may not be utter hogwash imagined during a drunken debauch. Or possibly a sober one. Who knows what fabulists like that do when they’re supposed to be working?
    According to the outlet, even before a ceasefire was reached between Hezbollah and Israel this week, both Paleostinian and US officials had said they thought Hamas was ready to give up on the strategy professed by slain leader Yahya Sinwar and move toward a deal.
    Oh. Well if anonymous, undefined Palestinian and Harris-Biden administration officials say it…
    Shortly before his death, Sinwar had told Hamas’s leadership that a long war against Israel was beneficial: "The longer it lasts, the closer we get to liberation," senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan recounted Sinwar saying.

    Citing two people familiar with the terror group’s thinking,
    …more anonymous sources…
    the report said leaders of the terror group have been discussing allowing Israel to maintain a temporary presence in the Philadelphi Corridor, the strategic border area between Egypt and Gaza that Israel’s leadership has pledged not to withdraw from.
    So generous of Hamas under the circumstances! (Yes, yes, dear Reader, the sarcasm is indeed implied.)
    Jerusalem has insisted that troops remain in Gaza to prevent arms smuggling from Egypt and says it is prepared only for a temporary halt in its campaign to destroy Hamas.

    According to the New York Times report, "reality started to sink in" after Sinwar’s death in October, as it became clear that Iran
    ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
    was not looking to open a direct conflict with Israel, and Hezbollah was being hit hard by the IDF. Hamas had hoped its allies in the Iranian axis would join in the fight and force Israel to accept a ceasefire on Hamas’s terms.
    No worries, guys — Iranian sockpuppets in Iraq and Yemen are still in the game. Granted neither could consistently hit Israel, even when their missiles and drone get through, but surely they get credit for trying.
    Hamas leaders are split over the role it should have after the war
    …none…
    and over the compromises it should make to achieve a ceasefire, according to the American outlet.

    Decision-making is hampered by the fact that Hamas has not chosen a leader to replace Sinwar.
    Of course. They don’t want him and his successor immediately killed by Israel.
    "The solution to Hamas’s military losses is simpler — there’s a pyramid of command and each commander or soldier can be replaced," Hamas member Salah al-Din al-Awawdeh told the newspaper. "But on the political level, things are far more complicated. There will ultimately need to be elections. There are different factions and balances of power. All this makes it hard to predict."

    Furthermore, US officials believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is waiting for US President-elect Donald Trump
    ...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party...
     to take office in January before making any decisions on his positions around a deal with Hamas, said the outlet, echoing reporting by The Times of Israel.

    An Egyptian security delegation was reportedly in Israel on Thursday to jump-start talks to secure a Gaza ceasefire deal and to present Israel with a "comprehensive vision" for an agreement.

    According to a report in The Wall Street Journal Thursday, Egyptian officials have been in contact with Trump’s staff to gauge whether he could make inroads on softening Israel’s positions in the negotiations, namely regarding control of the Gaza-Egypt border and the creation of a buffer zone between Israel and the Strip.

    Egyptian officials have also seemingly sought to soften Hamas’s stance, the paper reported, conveying to the group that its negotiating position had weakened since being "isolated" by the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Leb
    ...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
    The officials told the group it would unlikely be able to continue insisting on a full Israeli withdrawal, according to the report.

    Since Qatar
    ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
     withdrew from the mediation and kicked Hamas leaders out of Doha earlier this month, Egypt has emerged as a potential key conduit between the warring parties, alongside The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
    ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...
    , where most of Hamas’s big shotship have relocated.

    The Kan public broadcaster reported Thursday that a Hamas delegation was set to head to Cairo in the near future to discuss a potential deal.

    According to a report late Wednesday, US President Joe The Big Guy Biden
    ...46th president of the U.S. Sleazy Dem machine politician, paterfamilias of the Biden Crime Family...
     pressed Netanyahu in a call this week to immediately shift attention back to Gaza with the end of fighting in Lebanon. Meanwhile,
    ...back at the precinct house, Sergeant Maloney wasn't buying it. It was just too pat. The whole thing smelled phony, kind of like a dead mackeral but without the scales...
     Trump’s incoming administration was also reportedly being approached about pushing Israel toward a deal.

    Hamas indicated on Wednesday that it was ready for a truce in Gaza after a ceasefire came into effect in Lebanon with the Iran-backed Hezbollah, which had attacked Israel in support of its ally Hamas starting October 8, 2023, prompting reprisals and later an intensified IDF military campaign that destroyed much of the group.

    Officials had expressed hopes that taking the key Hamas ally off the battlefield could help push the Gazook terror group toward an agreement ending the war and freeing hostages in exchange for Paleostinian security prisoners.

    Indirect talks aimed at a deal freeing the 101 hostages held in Gaza and ending some 14 months of fighting there have stalled since the summer after multiple rounds of negotiations mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar failed to bring the sides together.

    Hamas has demanded that any agreement bring a complete end to the war in Gaza, along with a full Israeli withdrawal from the enclave. It also seeks the release of large numbers of Paleostinian prisoners in exchange for the hostages, who were among 251 kidnapped during the terror group’s October 7, 2023, rampage in southern Israel; some 1,200 people were massacred during the attack, which prompted the war.

    It is believed that 97 of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
    Link


    Israel-Palestine-Jordan
    Hamas official says group has 'high ability' to continue Gaza war despite losses
    2024-09-16
    [GEO.TV] A senior Hamas official told AFP on Sunday that the Palestinian resistance had ample resources to continue fighting Israel despite losses sustained over more than 11 months of genocide in Gaza.

    "The resistance has a high ability to continue," Osama Hamdan told AFP during an interview in Istanbul.

    "There were martyrs and there were sacrifices [...] but in return there was an accumulation of experiences and the recruitment of new generations into the resistance."

    "The number of casualties [...] is much less than what is expected in a battle of this size, level and breadth," Hamdan said on Sunday.
    Link


    Israel-Palestine-Jordan
    Hamas says it rejects new Israeli conditions in Gaza ceasefire-hostage talks
    2024-08-26
    [JPost] Hamas said on Sunday that it rejects new Israeli conditions put forward in Gaza ceasefire-hostage talks, casting further doubt on the chances of a breakthrough in the latest US-backed effort to end the 10-month-old war.

    Months of on-off talks have failed to produce an agreement to end Israel's military campaign in Gaza or free the remaining hostages seized by Hamas in the terrorist group's Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war.

    Key sticking points in ongoing talks mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar include an Israeli presence in the Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow 14.5 km-long (nine-mile) stretch of land along Gaza's southern border with Egypt.

    Hamas said Israel has backtracked on a commitment to withdraw troops from the Corridor and put forward other new conditions, including the screening of displaced Palestinians as they return to the enclave's more heavily populated north when the ceasefire begins.

    "We will not accept discussions about retractions from what we agreed to on July 2 or new conditions," Hamas official Osama Hamdan told the group's Al-Aqsa TV on Sunday.

    AGREEMENT IN JULY
    In July, Hamas accepted a US proposal to begin talks on releasing Israeli hostages, including soldiers and men, 16 days after the first phase of an agreement aimed at ending the Gaza war, a senior Hamas source has told Reuters.

    Hamdan also said Hamas has handed mediators its response to the latest proposal, saying that US talk of an imminent deal is false.
    Link


    Israel-Palestine-Jordan
    Hamas official ends interview when asked if he accepts blame for civilian deaths in Gaza
    2024-08-19
    [NYPOST] A top Hamas
    ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
     official abruptly ended a CNN
    ...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for...
     interview on Saturday after he was asked if the terror organization accepts responsibility for the deaths of Paleostinian civilians killed in the war.

    Hamas member Osama Hamdan suddenly ended his interview with CNN correspondent Jim Sciutto after he was asked if Hamas regretted its Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which killed hundreds of Israeli civilians — as Gazoo
    ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
     Health Ministry officials say 40,000 Paleostinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in the war.

    In response, Hamdan accused Sciutto, who was reporting from Tel Aviv, of taking Israel's side in the decades-long conflict.

    ''Well, it seems to me you are giving the Israelis the right to kill Paleostinians when you ask if we feel regret for what Israel has done,'' Hamdan said. ''You have to understand that Israel has been killing the Paleostinians for the last 76 years.''

    The two then went back on forth as Hamdan accused Sciutto of only viewing the conflict through ''Israeli eyes.''

    ''You didn't see the Israelis killing thousands of Paleostinians in those 20 years,'' Hamdan said, claiming Sciutto wasn't knowledgable of the thousands of Paleostinians who were killed in the 2008 and 2014 wars in Gaza.
    Related:
    Osama Hamdan 08/12/2024 Hamas says Biden truce plan must be implemented, but won’t attend Thursday hostage talks
    Osama Hamdan 07/01/2024 Hamas says 'no progress' in Gaza negotiations as Israel continues to bombard Shejaiya
    Osama Hamdan 06/16/2024 Islamic Jihad says only way to free Israel hostages is Gaza withdrawal, prisoner deal

    Related:
    Jim Sciutto 03/21/2020 Coronavirus update: Hospital CEO says face mask supplier charging $7 for 58-cent masks amid coronavirus crisis
    Jim Sciutto 06/03/2019 Swalwell says CNN may have to move Atlanta headquarters over anti-abortion law
    Jim Sciutto 10/25/2018 Day 2: Explosive Devices Sent to Clinton, Obama, CNN, Former Head of Democratic National Committee

    Related:
    Hamas: 2024-08-18 Labour Party VAT hike threatens future of UK Islamic schools
    Hamas: 2024-08-18 US: Jill Stein announces Muslim convert as VP running mate
    Hamas: 2024-08-18 Hamas condemns US-sponsored proposals as in line with Zionism
    Link



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