The online declaration was made by Mustafa Hamid, also known as Abu Walid Al-Masri, who is father-in-law to Saif Al-Adel, the man widely believed to now head Al-Qaeda, according to SITE.
In it, Hamid claimed the attention given to recovering the Israeli hostages, both dead and alive, was overshadowing the fate of Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel.
He also hailed Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader whom Israel announced a day earlier it had killed. Sinwar was the mastermind of the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel that triggered the ongoing war in Gaza.
Hamas must now “immediately” return the hostages and their bodies, and “this file must be closed and not opened again, as we know its consequences,” according to the statement.
“No one cares about the Palestinian prisoners, neither in the media, in negotiations, nor in demonstrations,” it said.
Al-Qaeda, held responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, was the target of the American-led invasion of Afghanistan, where it was traditionally based.
Its then-leader Osama bin Laden was killed by US special forces in neighboring Pakistan in 2011. Bin Laden’s successor, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, was killed by a US drone strike in July 2022.
The core Al-Qaeda organization survives, and its de facto leader is believed to be Saif Al-Adel, a former Egyptian special forces lieutenant-colonel whose presence has been reported in Iran.
Several experts consulted by AFP say Hamid is close to higher-ups in the core Al-Qaeda organization.
The group, which has spawned regional affiliates in Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Mali, has little leverage over Hamas, which is backed by Iran.
Hamas on Friday vowed not to release any hostages under the Gaza war ends.
Analysts said that, with no successor to Sinwar named and a vacuum in Hamas’s leadership, it will be difficult to find someone negotiate their release.
The exact number and fate of the remaining hostages held in Gaza for the past year is still not clear.
In all, Israel says 251 Israelis and people of other nationalities were seized and taken back to Gaza during the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
Many were captured while they were attending the open-air Supernova music festival, where more than 360 people were killed during the Oct. 7 attack.
Several rescue attempts have been mounted by the Israeli military — some successfully, others with disastrous results.
In June, amid fierce fighting in which dozens of Palestinians were killed in the Nuseirat area of central Gaza, four Israeli hostages were rescued from two buildings in a raid by Israeli forces.
Another raid in the southern Gaza strip on Aug. 27 led to the rescue of a single hostage.
But three days later Israeli soldiers recovered the bodies of six hostages from a tunnel near Rafah in southern Gaza. Held by Hamas for almost 11 months, it is thought they were killed by their captors as Israeli forces closed in on their position.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group representing those held hostage in Gaza, accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “abandoning the hostages” by refusing to sign a ceasefire deal with Hamas.
“The delay in signing the deal has led to their deaths and those of many other hostages,” they said in a statement.
Further disaster struck in December when three hostages, mistaken for enemy combatants, were shot dead by Israeli soldiers.
Hopes that a permanent ceasefire in Gaza might be achievable were raised in November last year when about 100 hostages were released as part of a temporary truce negotiated by Qatar.
On Nov. 24, the first day of the ceasefire, 24 hostages were released — 13 Israelis, including four children, 10 Thais and one Filipino.
They were handed over to representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, who escorted them from Gaza through the Rafah crossing into Egypt. There they were met by medics and officers of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal intelligence agency, and flown by helicopter to hospitals in Tel Aviv.
A month ago, according to the latest Israeli assessment, 101 people, including four taken hostage in 2014 and 2015, were still in captivity. Of these, at least 33 are thought to be dead.
On Aug. 31, the Israeli army said it had found “a number of bodies during combat in the Gaza Strip,” prompting new accusations from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum that Netanyahu had abandoned the hostages.
Thousands joined rallies throughout Israel to demand that the prime minister sign a ceasefire-for-hostages deal.
