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Hamas Says Will Free Hostages if End to Gaza War Guaranteed 

A Palestinian boy walks away as smoke billows following an Israeli strike on a metalsmith workshop at the Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City on April 13, 2025. (AFP)
A Palestinian boy walks away as smoke billows following an Israeli strike on a metalsmith workshop at the Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City on April 13, 2025. (AFP)
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Hamas Says Will Free Hostages if End to Gaza War Guaranteed 

A Palestinian boy walks away as smoke billows following an Israeli strike on a metalsmith workshop at the Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City on April 13, 2025. (AFP)
A Palestinian boy walks away as smoke billows following an Israeli strike on a metalsmith workshop at the Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City on April 13, 2025. (AFP)

A senior Hamas official said on Monday that the Palestinian group is prepared to release all Israeli hostages in exchange for a "serious prisoner swap" and guarantees that Israel will end the war in Gaza.

Hamas is engaged in negotiations in Cairo with mediators from Egypt and Qatar — two nations working alongside the United States to broker a ceasefire in the besieged territory.

"We are ready to release all Israeli captives in exchange for a serious prisoner swap deal, an end to the war, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and the entry of humanitarian aid," Taher al-Nunu, a senior Hamas official, told AFP.

However, he accused Israel of obstructing progress towards a ceasefire.

"The issue is not the number of captives," Nunu said, "but rather that the occupation is reneging on its commitments, blocking the implementation of the ceasefire agreement and continuing the war".

"Hamas has therefore stressed the need for guarantees to compel the occupation (Israel) to uphold the agreement," he added.

Israeli news website Ynet reported on Monday that a new proposal had been put to Hamas.

Under the deal, the group would release 10 living hostages in exchange for US guarantees that Israel would enter negotiations for a second phase of the ceasefire.

The first phase of the ceasefire, which began on January 19 and included multiple hostage-prisoner exchanges, lasted two months before disintegrating.

Efforts towards a new truce have stalled, reportedly over disputes regarding the number of hostages to be released by Hamas.

Meanwhile, Nunu said that Hamas would not disarm, a key condition that Israel has set for ending the war.

"The weapons of the resistance are not up for negotiation," Nunu said.

The war in Gaza broke out after Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Fighters also took 251 hostages, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Gaza's health ministry said on Sunday that at least 1,574 Palestinians had been killed since March 18, when the ceasefire collapsed, taking the overall death toll since the war began to 50,944.

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Congress Members Pay an Unofficial Visit to Syria as US Mulls Sanctions Relief

Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa walks out to welcome Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (not pictured) in Damascus, Syria, 18 April 2025. EPA/MOHAMMED AL-RIFAI
Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa walks out to welcome Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (not pictured) in Damascus, Syria, 18 April 2025. EPA/MOHAMMED AL-RIFAI
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Congress Members Pay an Unofficial Visit to Syria as US Mulls Sanctions Relief

Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa walks out to welcome Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (not pictured) in Damascus, Syria, 18 April 2025. EPA/MOHAMMED AL-RIFAI
Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa walks out to welcome Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (not pictured) in Damascus, Syria, 18 April 2025. EPA/MOHAMMED AL-RIFAI

Two Republican members of the US Congress were in the Syrian capital Friday on an unofficial visit organized by a Syrian-American nonprofit, the first by US legislators since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad in December.
Also Friday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa in his first visit since Assad’s fall and since the beginning of the Syrian uprising-turned-civil-war in 2011.
Rep. Marlin Stutzman of Indiana and Rep. Cory Mills of Florida visited the Damascus suburb of Jobar, the site of a historic synagogue that was heavily damaged and looted in the civil war, and the Christian neighborhood of Bab Touma, where they met with Christian religious leaders. They also were set to meet al-Sharaa and other government officials.
The Trump administration has yet to officially recognize the current Syrian government, led by al-Sharaa, who led a lightning offensive that toppled Assad. Washington has not yet lifted harsh sanctions that were imposed during Assad’s rule.
Mills, who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Associated Press that it was “very important to come here to be able to see it for myself, to be with various governmental bodies, to look at the needs of the Syrian people, to look at the needs for the nation for stability.”
Mills said he expected discussions with al-Sharaa to include the issue of sanctions, as well as the government’s priorities and the need for the transitional administration to move toward a “democratically elected society.”
“Ultimately, it’s going to be the president’s decision” to lift sanctions or not, he said, although “Congress can advise.”
The Congress members came at the invitation of the Syrian American Alliance for Peace and Prosperity, a nonprofit based in Indiana that describes its mission as fostering “a sustainable political, economic, and social partnership between the people of Syria and the United States.”
Syrian Minister of Social Affairs and Labor Hind Kabawat, the only woman and only Christian serving in the transitional government, joined the congressional team on a visit to Bab Touma, which she said was “very important” to Syrians.
The US State Department, meanwhile, issued a statement Friday reiterating its warning against US citizens visiting Syria. The statement said the State Department “is tracking credible information related to potential imminent attacks, including locations frequented by tourists.”