Israel offers Hamas a two-month truce and releases prisoners in exchange for those kidnapped, according to Axios

MADRID, 22 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Israel has offered Hamas a two-month truce in exchange for the release of all hostages and the release of Palestinian prisoners in a process that would be carried out in phases, according to the American portal Axios.

The offer has been transferred to Hamas through mediators from Qatar and Egypt, according to two Israeli sources cited by the portal. It includes the withdrawal of Israeli military forces from the main Gazan population centers and the return of displaced people to the north of the Palestinian enclave.

The proposal was approved ten days ago by the Council of Security Ministers of the Israeli Government, according to sources, who have expressed a certain optimism about the possibilities of closing an agreement on this basis.

The first phase includes the release of all women, men over 60 years of age and the critically ill. In the following phases, all military personnel, men under 60 years of age who are not military personnel, and finally all military personnel and corpses held by Palestinian militias would be progressively released.

Israel and Hamas will have to agree in each phase on how many Palestinian prisoners would be released and their names would subsequently be negotiated, although it emphasizes that in no case would all of the 6,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel be released.

The sources consulted have highlighted that Israel is willing to release a significant number of prisoners to achieve this agreement and that if it is applied in its entirety, military operations in Gaza will be much smaller in scope and intensity after the end of the truce.

Estimates point to some 130 hostages still being held in the Gaza Strip of the more than 240 who were kidnapped in the attack by Gazan militias against Israeli territory on October 7. Israel accuses Hamas of having committed war crimes, torture, rape and mutilation, something Hamas denies.

The Israeli response has been a military offensive against the Gaza Strip in which more than 25,000 people have died, more than half of them civilians, according to Palestinian estimates. A hundred of those kidnapped were freed during the seven-day truce in November in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.