Ceasefire needed before hostages can be freed, says Hamas official visiting Moscow
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Smoke rises in the air following Israeli bombings in Gaza, as seen from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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MOSCOW – Hamas officials visiting Moscow were quoted by Russian media on Friday as saying the militant group viewed all its hostages as Israelis, whatever additional passports they held, and could not release any of them until Israel agreed to a ceasefire.
Hamas Politburo member Abu Marzouk told state news agency RIA that Russia, the United States, France, Spain, Italy and many others had appealed for the release of their nationals from among more than 200 hostages that Hamas seized in a cross-border rampage into Israel on Oct 7.
He said Hamas viewed Moscow’s request “more positively and attentively than the others, given the character of our relations with Russia”.
RIA quoted him as saying that Hamas did not view its captives as Russian, French or American. “All those captured, for us, are Israelis, although there is an appeal to their original citizenship in the hope this will save them,” he said.
Russian newspaper Kommersant cited another member of the visiting delegation, Mr Abu Hamid, as saying that Hamas needs time to locate all those taken from Israel to Gaza by various Palestinian factions in a Hamas attack on Oct 7.
"They seized dozens of people, most of them civilians, and we need time to find them in the Gaza Strip and then release them," Mr Hamid said.
Kommersant quoted him saying that a calm environment is needed to complete this task.
Hamas said on Thursday that around 50 of the hostages had been killed in Israeli air strikes.
Russia on Friday defended its decision to invite the Hamas delegation to Moscow against strong Israeli criticism, saying it was necessary to maintain contacts with all sides in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Hamas delegation had met representatives of Russia’s Foreign Ministry but not with President Vladimir Putin or Kremlin officials.
“We consider it necessary to continue our contacts with all parties and, of course, we will continue our dialogue with Israel,” he told reporters.
Israel urged Russia on Thursday to expel the visiting Hamas delegation, calling their invitation to Moscow “deplorable”.
Russia has ties with all the key players in the Middle East, including Israel, Iran, Syria, Hamas and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank.
It has repeatedly blamed the crisis on a failure of US diplomacy, and called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and the resumption of talks aimed at finding a peace settlement.
Russia’s embassy in Israel issued a statement in which it reiterated Moscow’s call for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages held by Hamas and the delivery of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, which Israel is heavily bombarding ahead of an expected ground invasion.
Officials in Gaza say more than 7,000 Palestinians have been killed.
Mr Peskov ruled out any risk of Russia being drawn into the conflict after US fighter jets on Friday struck weapons and ammunition facilities in Syria in retaliation for attacks on US forces by Iranian-backed militia. But he added that the US strikes would further stoke tensions across the region. “This is very bad,” he said. REUTERS
