Israel says Hamas militants are surrendering en masse

MADRID, 11 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Israel's Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, assured this Monday that Hamas militants are surrendering en masse after closing the military siege on the positions of the Palestinian militias in the north of the Gaza Strip, specifically in Jabalia and Siyaia. .

"The most extermists, those who have been preparing to confront us for a long time, are close to collapsing. The volume of surrenders reveals the situation," Gallant said in statements reported by the newspaper 'Yedioth Aharonoth'.

"They come out of the bunkers and recognize that they have no weapons or food. Among those who have surrendered there are terrorists involved in the events of October 7," he added. "They are telling us very interesting things," she revealed.

The head of Defense has assured that they have already surrounded the last positions in Yabalia and Sheyaia, battalions that were considered invincible, which were prepared for years," he highlighted.

The options are "surrender or die," both for Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, and for "any other Hamas commander" or low-ranking "terrorists." "Whoever surrenders, his life is spared," he stressed.

The Israeli Armed Forces and the Shin Bet - secret services for the interior of Israel and the Palestinian territories - have reported this Monday that they have arrested more than 500 "terrorists" in the Gaza Strip in the last month that they have been interrogated by Military Intelligence Unit 504.

More than 140 have been detained since the end of the truce on December 1. "They have been arrested during the battles of recent days. Some have voluntarily surrendered and have been taken by interrogators to continue the investigation," a military statement said.

Of the 500 detainees, 350 would be members of Hamas and 120 from Islamic Jihad. Some were detained while hiding in civilian buildings, such as schools and shelters.

The Armed Forces have published photographs of detainees in the Gaza Strip and in them they appear clothed and with their hands on their heads, unlike in other leaked images, in which the prisoners appear handcuffed and in their underwear.

This same Monday, the Chief of the General Staff of the Israeli Armed Forces, Herzl Halevi, and the director of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, met in Khan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip. "We are deepening the achievements in the north of the Gaza Strip, in the south and underground," said Halevi.

Bar, for his part, expressed his "happiness to meet here, in the streets of Khan Yunis." "No one can resist this combination," she argued.