New reports: Netanyahu rejected Hamas’s offer to release the civilian hostages

New reports are emerging according to which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a Hamas proposal for the release of all the civilian hostages taken from southern Israel on 7 October 2023, as Al Jazeera reports.

Netanyahu’s actions have become a central topic of public debate less than a month before Israel’s national elections, where the prime minister’s political fate is closely tied to his handling of the war and the hostage issue.

The hostage issue has been one of the most sensitive wounds of the war that began after Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023, with the hostages’ families repeatedly pressing the Israeli government to reach a release agreement.

The Israeli government has not yet officially commented on these new claims. Netanyahu has previously insisted that military pressure is the path to freeing the hostages, an approach his critics have opposed as a failure.