(Reuters) – Eighteen countries, including the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Germany, urged Hamas, in a joint statement published on Thursday, to immediately release the hostages held in the Gaza strip.
“We call for the immediate release of all hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip for 200 days now,” it reads.
All eighteen countries have one or more nationals detained by Palestinian armed movements.
The eighteen countries (Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom) emphasize that the liberation immediate release of the hostages will make it possible to reach a “lasting ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip”.
Sami Abou Zouhri, a senior Hamas official, rejected the call, telling Reuters that the movement still demanded an end to hostilities in the Gaza Strip and the withdrawal of the Israeli army as part of a compromise for liberation. hostages. This pressure “is of no value,” he said.
Some 250 people were kidnapped during the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, according to Israeli authorities. Around a hundred of them were released last November during a one-week truce, in exchange for the release by Israel of some 240 Palestinian prisoners.
(Steve Holland and Doina Chiacu; French version Zhifan Liu, edited by Sophie Louet)
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