Islam Times - Israel must free rearrested Palestinians before prisoner swap talk: Hamas

Islam Times - The Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, has ruled out any talks regarding a potential prisoner swap with the Israeli regime unless it releases the Palestinians rearrested after previous exchange deals.

Hamas official Ismail Radwan made the remarks in a Friday statement, Palestinian Ma’an news agency reported.

He was referring to the Palestinians freed during an exchange deal in 2011that saw swapping Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit with 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, around 73 of whom were, however, rearrested by Israeli forces last year.

Shalit had been held in Gaza for more than five years.

The Friday statement came after Israel alleged on Thursday that two Israelis are being held in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Hamas has not commented on the allegations, however.

Israeli authorities claimed that Avraham Mengistu, an Ethiopian Israeli “is being held against his will by Hamas in Gaza,” adding that another is also being held.

Mengistu is said to have disappeared after he “independently” entered Gaza on September 7, 2014, two weeks after the end of latest Israeli war on Gaza last summer.

The second man, whose name has not been released, is a Bedouin Arab. Israeli officials have not specified how long he has been in Gaza or how he got there.

Thousands of Palestinians are currently being held in Israeli prisons. Israeli forces arrested over 2,000 Palestinians last summer alone amid increasing tensions in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.