Hamas tells negotiators it doesn’t need 40 Israeli hostages needed for first round of ceasefire

Hamas has indicated that it is currently unable to identify and locate the 40 Israeli hostages needed for the first phase of a ceasefire agreement, according to an Israeli official and a source close to the discussions, raising fears that There are more dead hostages than we know publicly. .

The framework set by negotiators stipulates that during an initial six-week pause in fighting, Hamas should release 40 of the remaining hostages, including all women as well as sick and elderly men. In exchange, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners would be released from Israeli prisons.

Hamas has told international mediators – including Qatar and Egypt – that it does not have 40 living hostages who meet the criteria for release, the two sources said.

CNN’s report on the hostage conditions also suggests that there are fewer than 40 hostages alive who meet the proposed criteria.

Hamas’s inability – or refusal – to tell Israel which hostages would be released alive constitutes a major obstacle, the second source added.

While Hamas appears unable to reach 40 in the proposed categories, Israel has pushed Hamas to supplement the initial release with younger male hostages, including soldiers, the Israeli official said.

Throughout the months of negotiations since the last ceasefire, Israel has repeatedly requested a list of hostages and their conditions. Hamas argued that it needed a break in fighting so it could find and reassemble the hostages, the same argument it made in November before a week-long break that ended after Hamas failed to deliver more hostages.

The majority of the approximately 100 hostages still alive are believed to be IDF soldiers or men of reservist age. Hamas is expected to attempt to use them in later phases to try to negotiate greater concessions, including more high-ranking prisoners and a definitive end to the war.

The more than 250 hostages captured or killed on October 7 were reportedly distributed among different Hamas members and factions, as well as other militant groups, gangs and even held by families.

The Israeli prime minister’s office said Wednesday that of the 129 hostages currently being held in the Oct. 7 attack, 33 were dead.

Among those believed to still be detained in Gaza are the Bibas family, who were taken from their home on Kibbutz Nir Oz. Yarden Bibas was separated from his wife Shiri and their children Kfir and Ariel, aged 9 months and 4 years respectively on October 7.

The two boys and their mother were not released from Gaza during the temporary truce in late November, despite the fact that the agreement between Israel and Hamas required that all women and children be released.

Hamas claimed in November that Shiri, Kfir and Ariel were killed in an Israeli airstrike, but provided no proof.

Hamas has repeatedly claimed that Israeli bombings have killed a number of hostages held in Gaza and that its ongoing campaign threatens those still alive.

In January, Hamas released a video showing clips of three hostages – Noa Argamani, Itai Svirsky and Yossi Sharabi – speaking to the camera, ending with a caption saying: “Tomorrow we will inform you of their fate. » The next day, another video appeared showing the corpses of Svirsky and Sharabi. In the video, Argamani said the two men were killed by Israeli bombing.

Israel said Hamas was inflicting “psychological torment” on the hostages’ families, and IDF chief spokesman Daniel Hagari said the two men were unharmed.

“We don’t strike in places where we know there could be hostages,” he said.

Hostage families have become a political force in Israel, staging mass protests to demand more be done to free their loved ones.

Two relatives of Israeli hostages were arrested last month during a protest outside the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv, organized after the Israeli delegation conducting indirect hostage negotiations with Hamas walked out of the negotiations Qatar without agreement.

CNN’s Christian Edwards contributed to this story.

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