Hamas chief holds talks with Turkish FM: sources

Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, who is located in Qatar, met with the foreign minister of Turkey on Sunday, according to diplomatic sources. This is the first time the two have had formal communication in over three months.

According to the sources, Haniyeh and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met on Saturday in Turkey.

The release of the remaining hostages and the implementation of “a ceasefire as quickly as possible” were the major topics of conversation, according to one of the sources. On October 7, Hamas terrorists started unprecedented attacks in Israel, seizing nearly 250 hostages.

The source said that during the meeting, the two sides also discussed “increasing humanitarian aid… and a two-state solution for a permanent peace”.

The last time Fidan and Haniyeh spoke on the phone was on October 16.

In reaction to the Islamist organization’s October bombings that claimed the lives of around 1,140 people, the majority of whom were civilians, Israel has promised to destroy Hamas, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.

The health ministry in Gaza, which is managed by Hamas, reports that at least 24,927 Palestinians have died as a result of its ceaseless shelling and ground onslaught, the majority of them were women and children.

132 captives are said to be in Gaza, according to Israel; at least 27 are thought to have died, according to an AFP count based on Israeli data.

Istanbul served as a base for Hamas political leaders before the October 7 attacks. Turkey asked the Hamas chiefs to leave after some were captured on video celebrating the deadliest attack in Israel’s history.

But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has since turned into one of the Muslim world’s harshest critics of the scale of death and destruction happening in Gaza.

Erdogan has compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler and accused the United States of sponsoring the “genocide” of Palestinians.