Excerpt:
“First and foremost, we need to sort out the matter of the hostages, to swap them with the terrorists that are here [referring to Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, not all of whom were involved in militant activities]; it’s just explosive material to hold them in prison. After that, we need to sit down and negotiate a peace agreement,” Pauker said. As he spoke, the sounds of explosions from Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza could be heard in the background.
“I have good friends from across the border [in Gaza], but I can’t meet them, and they can’t meet me. They used to come to my house. I spoke to them on Saturday. They are human beings. They have bad leaders, like us. We can throw away the leaders on both sides and make peace in a matter of minutes.”
Israel tightly controls all imports and exports, has its water controlled, it's electricity controlled, it's fuel controlled, it's food imports counted down the the calories, can not access things like concrete or steel or other construction materials. It's a concentration camp. It's a settler colonial occupation even if the colonizers don't set foot inside the ghetto.
And How is Hamas supposed to form ties with Egypt? They'd have to outbid Israel. What do they have to offer?
Meanwhile, Israel is working to normalize relationships with all the surrounding countries so Hamas can't have diplomatic ties with anyone! That's one of the reasons this attack happened - normalization has been defeated.