Hamas’s chief negotiator on the fate of 200 hostages held by the group inside Gaza says all civilians will be freed if the right conditions are met.

Hamas strongman Khaled Meshal is being honored as a living martyr after surviving an Israeli assassination attempt nearly three decades ago.

In his first interview on Western television since the October 7 attacks, he told the Sky News that civilians held by Hamas will be released if Israel reduces the intensity of its bombardment of Gaza.

“Let them stop this aggression and you will see that the mediators like Qatar and Egypt as well as some Arab countries will find a way to release them and we will send them home“, he said himself.

He said there could be no hostage releases while Israel’s airstrikes remained so intense.

“We want to stop the random bombings, the total destruction, the genocide, so that the Al-Qassam soldiers can take them from their positions and hand them over to the Red Cross or whoever.
“We need the right conditions to allow them to be released.”

Messal repeated claims that 22 hostages have been killed in Israeli airstrikes.

As he said, Hamas will not reveal which countries they are from, but says many of the dead are Israelis.

Messal also did not respond to a question about whether Hamas would completely stop hostage negotiations if Israel launched a ground invasion of Gaza.