US says Hamas murdering 6 captives makes hostage deal more difficult

Kirby said the US is not going to give up trying to secure a hostage-for-prisoner exchange and ceasefire agreement.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

When Hamas murdered 6 Israeli captives, they made closing a hostage release deal more difficult, US National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby told reporters on Thursday.

However, Kirby said the US is not going to give up trying to secure a hostage-for-prisoner exchange and ceasefire agreement.

“We’ve suffered yet another huge setback here.” Kirby said, but that “doesn’t mean we’re not going to keep trying.”

US officials are trying to secure the release of 32 hostages in the first phase of an agreement in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

Three of the 6 hostages who were executed by Hamas, including US citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, were slated for release in the first phase of the deal.

“The exchange of prisoners has not been agreed to, and that is really the heart of this deal,” Kirby stated.

In addition to complicating the process by murdering hostages, Kirby said Hamas has also altered some of its demands.

Although talks between delegates are ongoing, they are being carried out remotely from their home countries and no meeting has been set in a location such as Cairo or Doha as in the past.

Kirby added, “I can’t speak to the in the motivation to murder those hostages, but we still believe that as tragic as that was, and it certainly was tragic, that the ceasefire negotiations can and should continue.”

He continued that there is “communication between us and our counterparts in Qatar and Egypt and, of course, Israel, to try to still see if we can move this thing forward.”

“If there’s compromise, if there’s leadership… we can still get this deal. And that’s what we’re focused on right now, is trying to hammer out the differences that still exist between what Hamas says it wants and what Israel says it needs,” Kirby stated.

Hamas announced on Telegram that its new policy is to kill hostages if Israeli soldiers come to rescue them.

The spokesperson for Hamas’ armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obaida wrote, “Netanyahu’s insistence on liberating the prisoners through military pressure instead of concluding a deal will mean that they will return to their families inside coffins and their families will have to choose whether they are dead or alive.”

Referring to the IDF rescue of four hostages in Nuseirat in June, he added, “Let it be clear to everyone that, following the incident in Nuseirat, new instructions have been issued to the Mujahideen tasked with guarding the prisoners.”

He said, “These instructions outline how to handle the situation if the occupation army approaches the location where the prisoners are being held.”