The Palestinian Islamist organization Hamas has presented negotiators with a counter-proposal for a hostage-taking deal in indirect negotiations in the Gaza war, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
This would only provide for the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons and a gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip after a 42-day ceasefire, Haaretz reported on Sunday evening, citing Palestinian and Arab sources.
Hamas had previously rejected a US compromise proposal that would have called for the release of 40 hostages in exchange for 900 Palestinian prisoners during a six-week ceasefire.
According to Haaretz, the Hamas counter-proposal calls for the Israeli military to stop fighting and withdraw from urban centers in an initial six-week phase.
At the same time, displaced Palestinians would be allowed to return to the northern Gaza Strip. During this time, Hamas would search for all hostages in the contested area and find out what condition they are in.
In a second phase, the Israeli army would have to withdraw to Israeli territory. Only then would the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners begin, it was said.
For every Israeli civilian, Israel would have to release 30 Palestinian prisoners from prison in return, it said. For every Israeli soldier, 50 Palestinians would have to be released from Israeli prisons, including 30 serving life sentences.
In a third and final phase, Israeli soldiers and dead hostages would be handed over once the Israeli army’s siege of the Gaza Strip had ended and the reconstruction of the area had begun.
Israel had previously assumed that almost 100 of the approximately 130 hostages remaining in the Gaza Strip were still alive. However, there are now fears that there could be many more deaths.
Meanwhile, three bakeries in Gaza City resumed operations on Sunday with the help of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP).
According to eyewitness reports, thousands of people came to buy food shortly after the announcement that bread would be baked again.
Palestinian officials say that before the war there were around 140 bakeries in Gaza, supplying bread to most of the population.
However, since the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip began following the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, Palestinians have had to resort to baking bread on open fires and in clay ovens.
Israel is under increasing pressure to allow more humanitarian aid deliveries into the sealed off strip. Aid organizations describe the situation as catastrophic and say more than a million people are at risk of starvation.
More than 33,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war broke out on October 7, according to health officials in the Hamas-run region.
The head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) assumes that there is already a famine in parts of the Gaza Strip.
The official classification of a famine means that at least 20% of the population is experiencing extreme food shortages. In addition, at least one in three children suffers from acute malnutrition.