Hamas Considers Releasing 70 Hostages for 5-day Truce

Gaza – The armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas stated on Monday they told Qatari mediators that the group is considering to releasing up to 70 women and children held in Gaza for a five-day truce with Israel. 

"Last week, there was an attempt by the Qatari brothers to release the enemy captives from women and children, in return for the release of 200 Palestinian children and 75 women detained by the enemy," said Abu Ubaida, the spokesman for Hamas, as reported from the group's Telegram channel. 

"The truce should include a complete ceasefire and allow aid and humanitarian relief everywhere in the Gaza Strip," he added. 

Abu Ubaida has accused Israel of procrastinating and evading the price of the deal. 

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh rejected Israeli calls to build temporary refugee camps in southern Gaza. 

''We want our people to return to their homes, the places they left to flee,'' Shtayyeh told a cabinet meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday.

He said Palestinian authorities were working to ensure food and medicine shipments could reach the Gaza Strip, which is blockaded by Israel. 

"We are doing everything possible to save our people in Gaza,"

Shtayyeh also urged the United Nations and the European Union to deliver humanitarian aid by air to the besieged enclave, especially northern Gaza.

"We ask the UN and the EU to open other corridors for aid delivery to Gaza and not only through the Rafah gate bordering Egypt," he remarked. 

More than 11,100 Palestinians, including more than 8,000 children and women, have been killed in Israeli air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since last month, the state media office in Gaza said on Sunday. The death toll in Israel is nearly 1,200, according to official figures.