Cairo — A Hamas official said on Tuesday Israeli hostages can be brought home from Gaza only if a fragile ceasefire is respected, dismissing the “language of threats” after US President Donald Trump said he would “let hell break out” if they were not freed.
Hamas has begun releasing some hostages gradually but said on Monday it would not free any more until further notice, accusing Israel of violating the terms with several deadly shootings as well as holdups of some aid deliveries in Gaza.
Trump, a close ally of Israel, said in response that Hamas should release all the hostages held by the Palestinian militant group by midday on Saturday or he would propose cancelling the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, which took effect on January 19.
“Trump must remember there is an agreement that must be respected by both parties, and this is the only way to bring back the (Israeli) prisoners. The language of threats has no value and only complicates matters,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
Israel denies holding back aid supplies and says it has fired on people who disregard warnings not to approach Israeli troop positions.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that if Hamas did not release Israeli hostages by noon on Saturday a fragile ceasefire in Gaza would end and the Israeli army would resume its offensive in the Palestinian enclave until the militant group is defeated.
“In light of Hamas’ announcement of its decision to violate the agreement and not release our hostages, last night I ordered the IDF to gather forces inside and around the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu said, speaking after a meeting of his security cabinet.
“This operation is being carried out at this time. It will be completed in the very near future,” he said in a statement.
Trump has enraged Palestinians and Arab leaders and upended decades of US policy that endorsed a possible two-state solution in the region by trying to impose his vision of Gaza, which has been devastated by an Israeli military offensive and is short of food, water and shelter, and in need of foreign aid.
He has said the US should take over Gaza and move out its more than 2-million Palestinian residents so that the enclave can be turned into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
The forcible displacement of a population under military occupation is a war crime banned by the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
Palestinians fear a repeat of what they call the Nakba, or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven out during the 1948 war that accompanied Israel’s creation. Israel denies they were forced out.
Gazans interviewed by Reuters criticised Trump for saying he would be prepared for “hell” to break out if all the Israeli hostages were not released by noon on Saturday.
“Hell worse than what we have already? Hell worse than killing? The destruction, all the practices and human crimes that have occurred in the Gaza Strip have not happened anywhere else in the world,” said Jomaa Abu Kosh, a Palestinian from Rafah in southern Gaza, standing beside devastated homes.
The Gaza war has been paused since January 19 under the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that was brokered by Qatar and Egypt with support from the US.
More than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, the Gaza health ministry says, and nearly all of Gaza’s 2.3-million population has been internally displaced by the conflict, which has caused a hunger crisis.
About 1,200 people were killed in the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israeli communities and about 250 were taken to Gaza as hostages, Israeli tallies show.
New complexity
Trump’s ideas have introduced new complexity into a sensitive and explosive Middle East dynamic, including the shaky ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Trump restated his plan for the US to take over Gaza during a meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah on Tuesday and insisted that Jordan would house displaced Palestinians, despite the king’s opposition to the proposal.
Trump, who has suggested he could consider withholding aid to Jordan, said he was not using support as a threat.
“We contribute a lot of money to Jordan, and to Egypt by the way — a lot to both. But I don’t have to threaten that. I think we’re above that,” Trump said.
While the two leaders were cordial with each other, Trump’s comments about Gaza put King Abdullah in an awkward position, given the sensitivity in Jordan of the Palestinians’ claim of a right to return to the lands that many fled during the war that surrounded the creation of Israel in 1948.
Trump at one point appeared to prompt King Abdullah to say he would take in Palestinians from Gaza, but the king said he would do what is best for his country, and said Arab nations would come to Washington with a counterproposal.
Amman’s concern is amplified by a surge in violence on its border with the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Palestinian hopes of statehood are being eroded by expanding Jewish settlement.
UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said on X on Tuesday that a resumption of armed conflict should be avoided at all costs because that would lead to “immense tragedy”.
Update: February 11 2025
This story has been updated with new information.
Reuters
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