The Israeli Prime Minister warned Hamas that he will put an end to the ceasefire in Gaza and take intense fights if the Palestinian group “does not return our hostages by Saturday noon”.
Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered Israeli forces to have fun inside and around Gaza in response to the announcement of Hamas that he postponed more hostages until further notice.
It was not clear if Netanyahu demanded the release of the remaining 76 hostages, or that the three should be released this Saturday.
Hamas said on Monday that it would delay their release because Israel had violated the three-week ceasefire contract, in particular by blocking vital humanitarian aid-an assertion rejected by Israel.
The group’s decision encouraged the American president, Donald Trump, to propose that Israel cancels the agreement and “lets hell burst” unless “all hostages” were returned on Saturday.
Hamas said on Tuesday in a statement that the door was open to us, Qatari and Egyptian mediators to intervene and obtain the ceasefire agreement – which stipulates the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners – Back on The right track.
A senior Hamas official also rejected what he called Trump’s “language of threats”.
The remaining hostage display occurs a week after Trump announced a controversial plan for the United States to resume Gaza from post-war period and permanently move the two million Palestinians who live there.
The Palestinian authority, Hamas and the Arab states categorically rejected the proposal, while the UN warned that any forced displacement would be “equipped with ethnic cleaning”.
The first phase of the ceasefire agreement is expected to last six weeks and see a total of 33 Israeli hostages exchanged against around 1,900 Palestinian prisoners and detainees from Gaza.
Until now, 16 living hostages have been released since the ceasefire entered into force on January 19. Hamas has also given five Thai hostages apart from the terms of the agreement.
The 17 remaining Israeli hostages – two children, a woman, five men over 50 and nine men under the age of 50 – are supposed to be released over the next three weeks. The two parties said that eight of these hostages died, but only one was appointed.
The agreement has also seen the Israeli forces withdraw from the densely populated areas of Gaza, hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians return home in the North and hundreds of authorized aid trucks every day.
The Israeli army launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross -border attack on October 7, 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.
Since then, more than 48,210 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Ministry of Health managed by Hamas in the territory.
Most of the Gaza population has also been moved several times, almost 70% of buildings are estimated to be damaged or destroyed, health, water, sanitation and hygiene systems is are collapsed and there are shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter.
