General Nitzan Alon, the Israeli army’s official in charge of missing persons, informed the families of the prisoners that negotiations with Hamas to reach a prisoner exchange deal have “reached a dead end.”
Israel currently holds at least 9,500 Palestinian prisoners in its prisons, while it estimates that there are 101 Israeli prisoners in the Gaza Strip. Hamas has announced that dozens of these prisoners were killed in random Israeli airstrikes.
Channel 12 in Israel reported that General Alon had a conversation (the medium of which was not specified) with the families of the Israeli prisoners in Gaza, during which he stated that the negotiations have “reached a dead end.”
For months, Israel and Hamas, with mediation by Egypt and Qatar and support from the United States, have been engaged in indirect, faltering negotiations aimed at reaching an agreement for a ceasefire in Gaza and a prisoner exchange deal.
Alon added that “currently, there is no agreement,” stressing that “the gaps are very wide.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been obstructing any agreement by insisting on continuing the occupation of the Netzarim Corridor, which divides Gaza into north and south, as well as the Rafah crossing and the Philadelphia Route (in the south) bordering Egypt. These conditions are firmly rejected by Hamas.
When one of the representatives of the families of the prisoners asked Alon if he could provide a timeframe for reaching an agreement, Alon responded: “I cannot.”
Another family representative commented: “No timeline means another four months, especially with the upcoming U.S. presidential elections in November; there will be no deal anytime soon.”
According to the channel, “the general sentiment among the families of the prisoners was one of frustration and pessimism.”
With U.S. backing, Israel has been waging war on Gaza since October 7, which has resulted in over 137,000 Palestinian casualties, most of whom are children and women, along with over 10,000 missing persons, amid widespread destruction and a deadly famine.
In defiance of the international community, Tel Aviv continues the war, disregarding the United Nations Security Council’s resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, as well as the International Court of Justice’s orders to take measures to prevent acts of genocide and to improve the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Israel also defies the request from Karim Khan, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), to issue arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for their responsibility in war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel has turned Gaza into the largest prison in the world. For 18 years, it has imposed a siege on the territory, forcing nearly two million of its 2.3 million residents to flee in catastrophic conditions, deliberately causing severe shortages of food, water, and medicine.
