Army minister threatens Gaza, Lebanon… progression in negotiations on prisoner exchange between Israel, Hamas

The Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported: "Israel has informed the mediators of its agreement to some of Hamas's terms and will release prisoners from humanitarian cases."

It added, "Israel agreed to release the prisoners, the elderly, the very young, the women and the bodies of the martyrs, in the first stage of the deal."

However, according to the newspaper, senior Hamas officials did not consider this a real breakthrough in negotiations of the exchange deal with Israel.

The Israeli newspaper Yediot revealed yesterday evening that the Minister of the Army Gantz instructed "the army to accelerate the process of finding the bodies of Palestinian martyrs buried in Israel, with the aim of collecting bargaining papers in negotiations with Hamas, on a prisoner exchange deal."

While the Israeli security system estimates that the process of annexing the West Bank, which the government intends to implement at the beginning of next month, will affect the possibilities of reaching an exchange deal with Hamas.

In another context, the Israeli army minister, Benny Gantz, threatened Hamas and Hezbollah, saying: "Hamas will pay a heavy price if it wants to test Israel." He added: "Lebanon will be responsible for Hezbollah's use of its missiles against Israel."

He added, according to what was reported by the Israeli media, that the American "deal of the century" opened a window of historical opportunities for the Palestinians to re-examine the decision to reject it.

T/S

ANHA