A senior official in the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, stated that "most of the enemy's prisoners (hostages) in the northern Gaza region are considered missing due to Zionist aggression."
In remarks published by Al Jazeera, the senior Hamas official noted that "the Al-Qassam Brigades repeatedly warned of reaching this outcome in the areas of Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip."
He claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF "insist on evading this issue in their own way," and added that the Al-Qassam Brigades "are re-imposing full responsibility for the lives and fates of their prisoners (hostages) on the enemy's government and its army."
Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations currently hold 98 Israeli soldiers and civilians, roughly half of whom are still alive, with the vast majority taken during the October 7th massacre.