Hamas has accused Israel of making significant changes to the agreed list of Palestinian prisoners to be released.
A Hamas official, speaking to the BBC also claimed that the Israel Defense Forces killed two Palestinians in Beit Hanoun in Gaza, in an area where Palestinians are allowed to move.
He was talking to the BBC about Hamas’s decision to delay the release of Israeli hostages.
Israel has denied violating the truce agreement.
The delay in the release of the hostages appears to be partly over a row about how many aid lorries have entered Gaza as part of the deal – more specifically how many have reached northern Gaza.
UNRWA said on Friday that aid had reached the north of Gaza yesterday for the first time in a month, and the UN said 137 lorries entered Gaza in total yesterday. The Palestinian Red Crescent put the number of lorries crossing Rafah at 196.
Today, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said the UN was delivering over 50 lorries containing humanitarian aid – food, water, shelter and medical supplies – to the northern Gaza Strip and to shelters that had not yet been evacuated.
Hamas has accused Israel of not following the terms of the ceasefire agreement, and has delayed today’s release of hostages because of that.
Israel denies it has violated the truce agreement
The release of a second group of Israeli hostages by Hamas, which was supposed to have taken place this afternoon, has been delayed. It’s not yet clear how long this delay will last.
Yesterday, 24 hostages were freed – they included 13 Israelis, 10 Thais and one Filipino national. In exchange, 39 Palestinians were released from Israeli prisons.
It was expected that a similar process would happen today.
Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, has accused Israel of not following the terms of the agreement for hostage releases.
It says this is one of the reasons that it has delayed the release of Israeli hostages today. The other reason relates to aid trucks in north Gaza, it says.
The Israel Defense Forces is yet to comment.
Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, says it has decided to delay the release of the second batch of hostages until Israel commits to letting aid lorries into northern Gaza.
Source: BBC News
