AhlulBayt News Agency: The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas says its armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, has lost contact with two Israeli captives amid an ongoing Israeli military offensive in Gaza City.
"The (Ezzedine) Al-Qassam Brigades announce the loss of contact with the two prisoners, Omri Miran and Matan Angrest, due to the brutal military offensive and violent attacks in the Sabra and Tal al-Hawa neighborhoods over the past 48 hours," the resistance group said in a statement on Sunday.
“The lives of the two prisoners are in real danger,” the group added.
The Al-Qassam Brigades warned that the lives of the prisoners remain at "real risk," urging Israeli forces to halt the brutal escalation. They demanded an immediate retreat to the south of Street 8 in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City and a 24-hour suspension of airstrikes starting at 6 p.m. on Sunday.
The statement added: "The occupation must immediately stop its military operations until an attempt is made to evacuate the prisoners," concluding with the warning: "He has warned who has warned," amid the intensifying Israeli attacks on Gaza City neighborhoods and ground operations under the campaign dubbed "Gideon 2 Vehicles."
Israel has launched a massive ground assault on Gaza City, flattening whole districts and ordering hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee to the south of the besieged strip.
Dozens of captives have already been killed in Israel’s relentless bombardment of Palestinian territory, and now Israeli-imposed starvation is taking an additional toll on those who remain.
Palestinian and Israeli rights groups report that 50 Israelis remain captive in Gaza, including 20 believed to be alive, while Israel holds more than 10,800 Palestinian detainees, many of whom face torture, starvation, and medical neglect.
Last month, Izzat al-Rishq, a senior official with Hamas, said Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was seeking to kill Israeli captives through starvation after failing to locate and kill them in airstrikes.
He noted that the Palestinian resistance forces observe religious and humanitarian principles in dealing with Israeli captives, sharing their own food and water with them as they do with the wider Palestinian population.
Meanwhile, Hamas said on Sunday that it had received no new ceasefire proposals from mediators, as US President Donald Trump claimed a deal was close.
The resistance group said negotiations have been suspended since a failed assassination attempt on its leaders in an Israeli strike on Qatar's capital, Doha, on September 9.
The statement came after Israeli media reported that Hamas had agreed in principle to release all the captives it holds in return for hundreds of Palestinians held in prison and the gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from the besieged strip.
Hamas expressed “readiness to consider any proposals it receives from the mediators positively and responsibly, while preserving the national rights of our (Palestinian) people.”
Trump, met leaders and officials from some Muslim countries last week on the sidelines of UN General Assembly (UNGA) to discuss the situation in Gaza, which is facing a genocide, carried out by US ally Israel.
US special envoy to West Asia, Steve Witkoff, said Trump presented proposals to the leaders that included a so-called 21-point "Middle East" peace plan.
Trump's plan reportedly includes a pledge that Israel will not annex the occupied West Bank and that it will freeze building new settlements there.
Trump, a key supporter of the Israeli war on Palestinians in Gaza, had promised a quick end to the genocidal war, but a resolution remains elusive eight months into his term.
Trump's second presidency began with a two-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that ended with Israeli strikes killing 400 Palestinians on March 18.
According to the latest figures by Gaza officials, the death toll in the besieged strip has risen to 66,005.
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