TEHRAN - A senior Hamas leader, Osama Hamdan, has emphasized that the Israeli occupation regime will not see its captives held in Gaza except through a serious and genuine deal in which Palestinian prisoners enjoy their freedom.

Speaking at a press conference in the Lebanese capital Beirut, Hamdan said the Israeli response to the offer received by the resistance in May does not equate to a permanent ceasefire and a complete Israeli military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden also presented a ceasefire proposal based on a similar formula to the May ceasefire proposal with three phases. 

The difference between the two is that Biden presented a document that allows the occupation regime to recover male soldiers held in Gaza before Tel Aviv gives any credible guarantees on a permanent ceasefire. 

The proposal that Hamas accepted in May allowed the resistance group to release all elderly, sick and female captives but keep hold of male soldiers until a permanent ceasefire is signed and observed.

Ironically, the United States is piling pressure on Hamas to accept the American version which President Joe Biden says is an Israeli proposal despite Tel Aviv itself refusing to accept it.  

Hamdan said, "We have conveyed our position to the mediators, which is that we cannot agree to an agreement that does not guarantee a permanent ceasefire and a comprehensive withdrawal from the Gaza Strip."

He underlined that "the (Israeli) occupation will not see its captives (held) with the (Palestinian) resistance except through a serious and genuine deal in which our Palestinian prisoners enjoy freedom."

Touching on the suffering of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons and makeshift detention centers that have sprung up around Gaza, Hamdan said, “The prisoners are being subjected to the worst crimes of torture and deliberate killing in Israeli occupation prisons since October 7, 2023."

The senior Hamas official added that the Israeli torture against Palestinian prisoners extends to the occupied West Bank, occupied al-Quds (Jerusalem), and the rising number of Palestinian prisoners in Gaza as well, under an Israeli government that he described as the "most Nazi-like".

Hamdan pointed out that there is a complete disregard for the tragedies facing Palestinian prisoners in stark contrast to significant Western interest toward Israeli captives, which underscores the Western "bias" towards the Israeli occupation regime. 

He also referred to reports from UNRWA and other agencies that said the occupation regime has sent 225 Palestinian bodies in three containers to the Gaza Strip since last December. They had been killed after being arrested in the enclave.

The Hamas leader told reporters that the number of prisoners has reached 9,500 since October 7 last year, and they have all been subject to starvation, humiliation, and torture, with their bones and limbs broken.

Among the prisoners and kidnapped Gazans are injured individuals who have also been subjected to all kinds of humiliation, torture, and deliberate execution, according to Hamdan, who added that the Israeli military "made up rules that violate all norms, including international conventions on executing prisoners".

"There is an international move to save the prisoners," Hamdan pointed out. "The (Israeli) occupation has arrested 16,000 women since 1967, including prisoners who gave birth to their children in harsh conditions inside prisons, and they are chained."

He pointed out that "the (Israeli) occupation still detains more than 200 Palestinian children facing harsh conditions and subjected to all kinds of torture, both physically and psychologically."

Earlier, the Ministry of Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs in Gaza warned that the vast majority of Palestinians detained by Israeli forces "go to the unknown inside the (Israeli) occupation's cells, prisons, and camps," since the start of the genocidal war on Gaza.

It added that Israeli security agencies continue to interrogate prisoners in an attempt to extract information from them, in oppressive conditions that involve beatings and different forms of torture.