Why Hamas insists on release of jailed Fatah leader
Israel has refused the conditions set by Hamas for a future prisoner exchange deal, which include the release of imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A senior Hamas leader told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that recent talks between the Hamas leadership and several mediating countries — which he did not name and which Hamas’ politburo head Ismail Haniyeh visited on his foreign tour that began Dec. 7 — aimed to outline a new prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel.
Hamas acknowledged back in 2016 that it is holding four Israelis, including soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin, whom Israel believes are dead. Israel says the soldiers were killed in the 2014 war on Gaza. Hamas, meanwhile, refuses to reveal their fate as well as that of the other two Israelis — citizens Avera Mengistu, an Ethiopian Jew, and Hisham al-Sayed, an Arab — who both willingly entered the Gaza Strip in 2014.
