Israel ready to let Hamas leader leave Gaza in exchange for hostage release — official

Israel proposed letting Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar safely leave the Gaza Strip in exchange for releasing hostages Hamas is holding and ceding control over the enclave, a senior Israeli official said, Report informs referring to TASS.

"I’m ready to provide safe passage to Sinwar, his family, whoever wants to join him," Gal Hirsch, coordinator for the captives and the missing, said in an interview with Bloomberg. "We want the hostages back. We want demilitarization, de-radicalization of course — a new system that will manage Gaza."

According to the Israeli official, he put forth this proposal a day and a half ago but refused to say which answer was given. "In parallel, I must work on plan B, C and D because I must bring the hostages back home. The clock is ticking, the hostages don’t have time," he added.

US journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh said earlier, citing his sources, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists on continuing hunting for Sinwar, who is hiding in Gaza tunnels, although such an operation would entail the death of the rest of the hostages. However, in his words, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant doesn’t share this position, saying that Netanyahu is ready to sacrifice the hostages for the sake of his own egoistic needs.