Hamas says it has enough Israeli captives to free all Palestinian prisoners
World
We managed to kill and capture many Israeli soldiers
(Web Desk) - Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri says group expects fighting with Israel to continue after major operation.
A senior Hamas leader has said that the group had captured enough Israeli soldiers during an unprecedented attack against Israel to make Israeli authorities free all Palestinian prisoners in its jails.
“We managed to kill and capture many Israeli soldiers. The fighting is still on,” Saleh al-Arouri, deputy chief of Hamas’s political bureau, told Al Jazeera on Saturday.
“Our detainees in [Israeli] prisons, their freedom is looming large. What we have in our hands will release all our prisoners.
The longer fighting continues, the higher the number of prisoners will become,” added al-Arouri, who said senior officers were among those captured, but did not provide any figures.
According to the latest figures by Addameer, a prisoners’ rights NGO, nearly 5,200 Palestinians are in Israeli jails, including 33 women, 170 minors and more than 1,200 placed under administrative detention.
The Israeli army has acknowledged soldiers and commanders have been killed and prisoners of war have been taken. It has not given any figures.
Hamas, the group running the besieged Gaza Strip, launched the biggest operation on Israel in years on Saturday, killing dozens of people and wounding hundreds after fighters crossed into Israel under the cover of a barrage of rockets fired from Gaza.
Meanwhile, Hamas social media accounts posted footage of what were said to be Israeli captives moved alive into the Gaza Strip.
The surprise operation from Gaza came on the heels of the killing of four Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, widespread Israeli settler attacks, especially in Huwara, near Nablus and increased tensions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem.
