A senior Hamas leader has stated that the group has captured enough Israeli soldiers during an unprecedented attack against Israel to compel Israeli authorities to release all Palestinian prisoners in its jails.
“We have managed to kill and capture numerous Israeli soldiers. The fighting is still ongoing,” Saleh al-Arouri, deputy chief of Hamas’s political bureau, informed Al Jazeera on Saturday.
“The freedom of our detainees in [Israeli] prisons is imminent. What we currently possess will result in the release of all our prisoners. The longer the fighting persists, the greater the number of prisoners will become,” added al-Arouri, who mentioned that senior officers were among those captured but did not provide specific figures.
According to the latest statistics from Addameer, a prisoners’ rights NGO, there are nearly 5,200 Palestinians in Israeli jails, including 33 women, 170 minors, and over 1,200 individuals under administrative detention.
The Israeli army has acknowledged that soldiers and commanders have been killed and prisoners of war have been taken, but it has not disclosed any figures.
Hamas, the governing body in the besieged Gaza Strip, launched its largest operation against Israel in years on Saturday, resulting in the deaths of dozens of people and the injury of hundreds. This occurred after fighters crossed into Israel amidst a barrage of rockets fired from Gaza. Meanwhile, Hamas’s social media accounts shared videos allegedly showing Israeli captives being transported alive into the Gaza Strip.
Source from www.aljazeera.com