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.



Israeli Missile Hits Gaza Children Collecting Water

A Palestinian woman reacts as a young man carries the body of her child killed in an Israeli strike, in front of Gaza City's Maamadani (Baptist) hospital on July 13, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
A Palestinian woman reacts as a young man carries the body of her child killed in an Israeli strike, in front of Gaza City's Maamadani (Baptist) hospital on July 13, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
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Israeli Missile Hits Gaza Children Collecting Water

A Palestinian woman reacts as a young man carries the body of her child killed in an Israeli strike, in front of Gaza City's Maamadani (Baptist) hospital on July 13, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
A Palestinian woman reacts as a young man carries the body of her child killed in an Israeli strike, in front of Gaza City's Maamadani (Baptist) hospital on July 13, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

At least eight Palestinians, most of them children, were killed and more than a dozen were wounded in central Gaza when they went to collect water on Sunday, local officials said.

The Israeli military said the missile had intended to hit an Islamic Jihad militant in the area but that a malfunction had caused it to fall "dozens of meters from the target".

"The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians," it said in a statement, adding that the incident was under review.

The strike hit a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, killing six children and injuring 17 others, said Ahmed Abu Saifan, an emergency physician at Al-Awda Hospital.

Water shortages in Gaza have worsened sharply in recent weeks, with fuel shortages causing desalination and sanitation facilities to close, making people dependent on collection centers where they can fill up their plastic containers.

Hours later, 12 people were killed by an Israeli strike on a market in Gaza City, including a prominent hospital consultant, Ahmad Qandil, Palestinian media reported. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the attack.

Gaza's health ministry said on Sunday that more than 58,000 people had been killed since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023, with 139 people added to the death toll over the past 24 hours.

Negotiations aimed at securing a ceasefire appeared to be deadlocked, with the two sides divided over the extent of an eventual Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian enclave, Palestinian and Israeli sources said at the weekend.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to convene ministers late on Sunday to discuss the latest developments in the talks, an Israeli official said.

The indirect talks over a US proposal for a 60-day ceasefire are being held in Doha, but optimism that surfaced last week of a looming deal has largely faded, with both sides accusing each other of intransigence.

Netanyahu in a video he posted on Telegram on Sunday said Israel would not back down from its core demands - releasing all the hostages still in Gaza, destroying Hamas and ensuring Gaza will never again be a threat to Israel.