Hamas: No Negotiations Until Zionist Aggression Ends Completely

Sheikh Saleh Al-Arouri, the Deputy Head of Hamas’ Political Bureau, confirmed in an interview with Al Jazeera on Saturday evening that there are currently no negotiations taking place. He stated that the official and final position of Hamas and the resistance is that there will be no exchange until the Zionist aggression has completely and finally ended.

From the beginning, Hamas declared that foreign prisoners are ready to be released without any exchange. Al-Arouri emphasized that children and women prisoners are not a target and will be released. The remaining prisoners with the resistance are soldiers and former soldiers, and there are no negotiations regarding them until the end of the aggression.

Al-Arouri added that they have been ready since the beginning to exchange the bodies of their martyrs held by the occupation. However, they need time to extract the bodies of the Zionist prisoners killed by the occupation in its raids on their people in Gaza.

He pointed out that the elderly men, all of whom have served in the army and some of whom are still on the reserve list, have different standards for us than what has been mentioned before.

Al-Arouri stated that the Zionist occupation refused to complete the deal to release the former soldiers with new standards. They think that by resuming targeting children and women, we will succumb. However, our official position is that we will discuss the exchange deal after the end of the war.

He stressed that the occupation is delusional if it thinks it can impose its dominance on us. Its first round of war failed miserably. He added that they are absolutely confident that the occupation will fail to control the Gaza Strip.

He emphasized that the forces that the Zionist army mobilized to attack Gaza, which are a third of its ground force and more than a third of its air force, are sufficient forces to defeat entire countries.

He continued, saying that despite this, it decided to attack only a third of the area of the Gaza Strip in the north. For 50 days, it did not succeed in controlling it, and it will never succeed.

Al-Arouri pointed out that the countries supporting the Zionist occupation have become convinced that the goals announced by the Zionist government to eliminate Hamas, recover the prisoners by force, and control Gaza, are unachievable.

He said that the Zionist enemy needs to go through this round so that its people and its supporters are assured that it will fail to liberate the prisoners except by an exchange operation as the resistance wants.

He added that they said from the first day that the price for releasing the Zionist prisoners is “the complete liberation of our prisoners,” according to Al-Arouri, after the ceasefire.

The Palestinian leader stressed that breaking the resistance in Gaza and controlling the Gaza Strip are just illusions, and what the occupation is doing is a war of revenge against the innocent, hospitals, mosques, churches, and schools.

He pointed out that the American position is not independent of the Zionist position, but precedes it, in covering, justifying, and implementing these crimes against the Palestinian people.

Al-Arouri said that America is morally bankrupt in everything related to the conflict in Palestine, and it has become a more fascist and Nazi state than the occupation itself.

He pointed out that two days before the end of the truce, the Zionist War Minister Gallant himself said that he signed a decision to resume the military operation, so it is not Hamas that violated the truce.

Al-Arouri stressed that the people will fight and resist and will not surrender until we impose on the enemy the recognition of our historical and political rights.

He added that this enemy will experience this round to achieve the goals that it failed to achieve in the last round, and it will also fail this time.

He pointed out that some rounds of prisoner exchange took place in the middle of Gaza City, which confirms the failure of the first round of the war.

Al-Arouri stressed that the search will not be for what is after Hamas, but for “how can this army get rid of the predicament it got involved in.”

He pointed out that displacement is still present in the minds of the Zionist project, and this plan was prepared for the West Bank, but the opening of the battle by the resistance in Gaza has moved the battle to Gaza.

He saw that the displacement project failed, stressing that the steadfastness of the Palestinians people and their readiness to die in their homes rather than leave them, and the strong Arab position failed this project.

He warned that the West Bank was at the forefront of the resistance scene and witnessed a great escalation and high tension, before October 7, then after this date, the occupation committed all the crimes it dreamed of, and killing and execution became fieldwork.

Al-Arouri said, “Our people have always accustomed us that they quickly resume their resistance, and we saw the Al-Quds operation, and we are confident that the West Bank will throw its weight in this battle.”