Hamas spokesman: “We are ready to release the hostages. But not under fire”

Hamas knows how to camouflage itself. While children frolic at the entrance of an inconspicuous apartment building in the south of the Lebanese capital Beirut, Ali Baraka has closed the heavy golden curtains two floors above. Not a single ray of light penetrates into his office from outside. A map of Gaza is attached to a stand, signed in Arabic letters: “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood”. This is how they refer to the largest massacre in Israeli history – the Hamas attack on October 7th.

Hamas officials rarely speak out in the Western media. Their scepticism is great. Even when the star is in Beirut for a week, there are always cancellations. But then a call: Ali Baraka, the foreign policy spokesman, could be interviewed. Now or never. Meeting point in an hour and a half.

During the course of the conversation, Baraka will dream of a Palestinian state, will deny indisputable things, will consider Israel “worse than the Nazis.” A bald man with a serious look, he is on the American and British sanctions lists. A few days after the meeting, Israel’s army will free four hostages in Gaza.

Why does the star with a terrorist organization? It is not about putting them on the same level as the democratically elected government of Israel. But Hamas is also sitting at the negotiating tables in Cairo and Doha and is thus deciding the future of Gaza. Anyone who wants to understand the war in the Middle East and find a solution must know the position of the other side, their motivation, their demands, their ideology. We have commented on some of the obvious false statements.