Hamas Rejects Israel Offer To Trade Politicians For Hostages; ‘Collective Punishment’

“We’ll take the continued bombing and artillery strikes, thanks.”

Khan Yunis, January 3 – The Islamist terrorist organization that officially runs the Gaza Strip turned down a proposal today in which the group would free the Israelis and foreign nationals it abducted on October 7 in exchange for high-ranking elected officials, fewer in number than the current captives but of greater prominence – a proposal that the movement decried as an unjust infliction of misery on all the inhabitants of the coastal territory.

A Hamas spokesman rejected the Israeli offer to trade more than a hundred hostages for more than a dozen Israeli politicians, with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu included in at least one version of the proposal leaked to reporters. Fawzi Barhoum called the offer an expression of intention to perpetrate a “horrific collective crime against Palestine and the people of Gaza.”

“We’ll take the continued bombing and artillery strikes, thanks,” said Barhoum, communicating from an undisclosed location. “The international community must step in at once to prevent the Zionist enemy from committing the atrocity of foisting their politicians on us.”

Human rights groups issued similar, scathing criticism of the Israeli offer, which was conveyed to Hamas by Qatari mediators. “Disproportionate, disproportionate in the most egregious sense of the word!” spat Agnes Callamard of Amnesty International. “Even by the ugly standards we have long associated with Israel, this is a heinous proposal. Politicians, indeed. And we thought deploying white phosphorus was as cruel an example that could be found of IDF inhumanity. I’m going to be sick.”

Ben Zona of the Israeli group Btselem voiced his organization’s concern for the toxic effect of politicians on those around them. “These… figures, they produce corrosion and pain wherever they go,” he stated. “There is no reason on Earth for Gazans to be exposed to them, and certainly not a dozen of them. I’m not sure how they would handle corruption, incompetence, and cynicism of that magnitude, except that they have had their own leaders this whole time, which I guess refutes the point.” He scratched his head.

“Anyway,” he continued, “no one deserves to have those fiends near them. I guess except Israelis, in whose defense we would never speak for fear of upsetting our chief donors.”

Israelis, too, expressed their displeasure with the offer, with many commentators observing that getting rid of a mere dozen or so politicians would accomplish nothing; they argued that parting with anything less than the entire cabinet and legislature, totaling about 150 people, is a non-starter.

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