CAIRO (Reuters) -The armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas said on Monday it told Qatari mediators the group was ready to release up to 70 women and children held in Gaza in return for a five-day truce with Israel.
“Last week there was an effort from the Qatari brothers to release the enemy captives from women and children, in return for the release of 200 Palestinian children and 75 women detained by the enemy” Abu Ubaida, the spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, al-Qassam Brigades, said in an audio recording posted on the group’s Telegram channel.
“The truce should include a complete ceasefire and allow aid and humanitarian relief everywhere in the Gaza Strip,” he said.
He accused Israel of “procrastinating and evading” the price of the deal.
(Reporting by Omar Abdel-Razek and Moaz Abdel-Aziz; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Howard Goller)
