“From the beginning, the Hamas Movement had announced that we were ready to release foreign prisoners without anything in return and that the detained children and women would be released,” Aruri told Al Jazeera satellite channel on Saturday evening.
“The remaining prisoners being held by the resistance are soldiers and former soldiers, but there will no negotiations over them until the aggression ends,” Aruri said.
“We have said from the beginning that we are ready to exchange the bodies of our martyrs being held by the occupation, but we need time to collect the bodies of the Zionist prisoners who were killed during its airstrikes on our people in Gaza,” Aruri added.
“The terrorist Zionist occupation refused to close a deal to release the former soldiers according to new conditions, thinking that by resuming its attacks on children and women, we will acquiesce, but our official position is that an exchange deal will be discussed after the war ends,” Aruri underlined.
“The occupation is delusional if it thinks it is able to impose its hegemony on us. Its first round of war has failed miserably,” Aruri said. “We are absolutely confident that the occupation will fail to control the Gaza Strip.”
The Hamas official described the Israeli attempts to break the resistance in Gaza and control the Gaza Strip as “illusions.” “What the occupation is doing is a war of revenge against innocent people, hospitals, mosques, churches and schools.”
He accused the US administration of being involved directly in “the crimes that are being committed against the Palestinian people.”
“America is morally bankrupt regarding everything related to the conflict in Palestine. It has become more fascist and Nazi than the occupation itself,” he underscored.