Arouri: we are awaiting the Israeli reply regarding the nine female captives

19.10.11

Arouri: we are awaiting the Israeli reply regarding the nine female captives CAIRO, (PIC)-- Hamas political bureau member, Sheikh Saleh al-Arouri who is responsible for the captives’ file, said that his movement submitted to the occupation, through the Egyptian mediator, a list of 9 female captives who were excluded from the exchange list and informed them that excluding them will be considered a breach of the agreement.

He told PIC, in an exclusive interview: “During the negotiations the Zionist side supplied a list of Palestinian female captives which included 27 captives. After we scrutinised the list we discovered that nine female captives were excluded from the list, so we returned the list to them and awaiting their reply.”

About the rumours that most of those captives included on the exchange list are affiliated with Hamas, he said that out 1027 captives due to be released, 600-700 will be from other factions, mostly affiliated with Fatah.

About the criticism the exchange deal attracted from figures in the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority and Fatah, especially failing to free a number of leaders, he said: "We managed to free over a 1000 captives, but there is still a huge number of captives in jails, thus those who criticise what we have achieved are required to free the rest of the captives instead of criticising what was achieved."