Hamas Says Russia ‘Our Closest Friend’

Russia is “our closest friend,” a Hamas spokesman has said, as the possibility of wider Israeli ground operations looms over efforts to safely return hostages who have been held in the Gaza Strip for more than three weeks.

Hamas has received a list of dual Russian citizens who could be held among other hostages in Gaza, senior Hamas member Mousa Abu Marzouk told the Russian state-backed RIA Novosti news agency. The Palestinian militant group is trying to locate eight Russian hostages and is prepared to release them, he said.

“From the Russian side, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we received a list of citizens who have dual citizenship,” Marzouk said. “We are very attentive to this list and will process it carefully, because we look at Russia as our closest friend,” he said, according to RIA.

Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment via email.

During a meeting in Moscow late last week, Hamas representatives pledged “to respond, assist, find them and take all measures to free the Russians,” Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told the Kremlin-backed TASS news agency on Sunday.

“Russia’s contacts and actions in the Middle East and in international organizations are focused primarily on the immediate release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip, as well as resolving issues related to ensuring the evacuation of Russian and other foreign citizens from its territory,” the Russian Embassy in Israel said on Friday.

More than three weeks after Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a shock series of coordinated attacks on Israel, more than 200 hostages who were brought into Hamas-controlled Gaza have not yet been released. Four hostages held by Hamas have been released, including 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz, with those remaining in the territory thought to number 229 or 230. Hamas has said up to 50 Israeli hostages have been killed in Israel Defense Forces (IDF) airstrikes on Gaza, but Newsweek could not independently verify this.

Israel has carried out wave after wave of airstrikes on Gaza, ahead of an anticipated ground invasion of the strip, to the west of southern Israel. On Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was beginning a new phase of the war with Hamas in Gaza, vowing to “destroy the enemy above ground and below ground.”

Israeli ground forces were also working to “bring our kidnapped citizens back,” Netanyahu said in remarks reported by Israeli media. Meeting with the families its abducted citizens on Saturday, Netanyahu said the country “will exercise and exhaust every possibility to bring them home.”

Israel has launched a series of ground incursions in northern Gaza, and the IDF said on Sunday its troops were expanding its operations alongside continuing airstrikes.

“The objectives of this war require a ground operation,” the IDF Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevi, said in a video statement posted on Saturday.

Hamas fighters targeted two Israeli tanks in northwest Gaza, representatives for the Palestinian movement said on Sunday. Newsweek has reached out to the IDF for comment via email.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which is lobbying for the release of the hostages, described the “long and sleepless night” after Israel expanded its operations in northern Gaza on Friday.

There is “absolute uncertainty regarding the fate of the hostages held there, who were also subject to the heavy bombings,” the group said in a statement. “The families are worried about the fate of their loved ones and are waiting for an explanation. Every minute feels like an eternity.”

More than 1,400 people died in Israel during the surprise attack on October 7, according to The Associated Press, citing Israel’s government. The Hamas-controlled health authorities in Gaza say the death toll among the strip’s 2.3 million inhabitants has now passed 8,000.