‘Significant Progress’ Achieved In Prisoner Swap Negotiations – Report

By JPost
Posted on 09/22/21 | News Source: JPost

“Significant progress” has been made toward reaching a prisoner exchange agreement between Israel and Hamas, Palestinian sources told the Quds News Network news agency on Wednesday.
According to the unnamed sources, the progress was achieved after Israel reportedly made “a concession” regarding Palestinian security prisoners serving life terms in Israeli prisons.

The sources did not provide additional details about the ostensible progress.
But as Egypt pursues its efforts to reach a prisoner exchange agreement between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) organization called for kidnapping IDF soldiers to force Israel to release security prisoners.

Khader Habib, a senior PIJ official in the Gaza Strip, said that Palestinian “resistance” groups must kidnap IDF soldiers in order to exchange them for security prisoners in future prisoner swaps.

“This is the only way to liberate the prisoners,” Habib told the Palestinian Khabar news agency. “The number of prisoners serving lengthy sentences is very high. There are 5,000 prisoners who are being subjected to the most severe forms of abuse.”

Habib said that the PIJ and other Palestinian armed groups have endorsed abductions as a “main means to liberate the heroic prisoners from the prisons of the Israeli occupation.”