As many as 40 Israeli women and children are being held hostage in Gaza by groups other than Hamas—and the militant group will need to account for them in order to extend its brief ceasefire with Israel, Qatar’s prime minister told the Financial Times on Sunday.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani told the newspaper that the fragile truce, which was brokered by Qatar, could continue should Hamas use the pause to track down the other hostages. There would have to be “proof” that the group, which also governs the Gaza Strip, had found and could release those hostages, the prime minister added.
He indicated there were no other terms under which Israel would be willing to extend the peace. “From our perspective, we want to see this war stopped to figure out a solution to address the concerns [Israel has], but until now the only willingness to negotiate about any pause or ceasefire... is associated with the hostages,” Sheikh Mohammed told the Times.
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“If things move in the right direction, we will be able to enter negotiations on another category [of hostages].”
His comments come on the third day of the four-day truce, and just hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that 14 Israelis—including nine children—and three foreign nationals had been released by Hamas. The batch of hostages released on Sunday brings the total freed by Hamas over the last three days up to 58, according to NBC News.
The original terms of the deal called for 50 captured women and children to be released. Sheikh Mohammed told the Times that Hamas, in talks with Qatar, had blamed the kidnapping of Israeli civilians on Oct. 7 on other armed groups and Palestinian civilians following its fighters across the border.
He added it was unclear how many more the group would be able to locate in the coming days, as “one of the purposes” for the pause was to give Hamas “time to search for the rest of the missing people.”
It is believed that around 240 people were abducted from Israel and taken back to Gaza on the day of the attacks. Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a Gaza-based paramilitary organization, said earlier this week that it was holding more than 30 hostages, adding that most of the rest were in the custody of Hamas. In a statement posted on its behalf by Hezbollah, PIJ said it would not release its hostages “until all Palestinian prisoners are released.” The conditions of the ceasefire mandate that Israel release 150 Palestinians held in its prisons; on Sunday, 39 teenage Palestinian inmates and detainees were released and transported back to Gaza.
Netanyahu, who visited the Gaza Strip on Sunday, said Israel would “welcome” an extension of the truce, provided Hamas releases an additional 10 hostages per day. But, he said he told U.S. President Joe Biden in a conversation over the weekend: “At the end of the deal, we are returning full-power to carry out our aims: destroy Hamas, ensure that Gaza won’t return to what it was, and of course to free all of our hostages.”
A source told CNN that Israel’s war cabinet had met with Hamas on Sunday evening to discuss the possibility of extending the truce, with the former apparently reiterating its 10-hostages-per-day terms.
Hamas said Sunday it wanted to extend the ceasefire. The group said in a statement posted to Telegram that any extension will be contingent upon “serious efforts to increase the number of those released from imprisonment as stipulated in the humanitarian ceasefire agreement.”
