A Hamas official said on Tuesday that Israeli hostages can only be released if a ceasefire is upheld, rejecting “threatening language” after U.S. President Donald Trump warned of severe consequences if they were not freed.
Hamas has started releasing some Israeli hostages gradually under the ceasefire in place since January 19 but has postponed freeing any more until further notice, accusing Israel of violating the terms by continuing attacks on the Gaza Strip.
Trump’s Deadline
Trump, a close ally of Israel, said on Monday that Hamas should release all the hostages held by the militant group by midday on Saturday or he would propose cancelling the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
“As far as I’m concerned, if all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday at 12 o’clock, I think it’s an appropriate time. I would say, cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out. I’d say they ought to be returned by 12 o’clock on Saturday,” Trump said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel remained determined to get all the hostages back.
“We will continue to take determined and ruthless action until we return all of our hostages – the living and the deceased,” he said in a statement mourning Israeli Shlomo Mansour after the military confirmed he was killed during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, that triggered the Gaza war.
Two-State Solution
Trump has enraged Palestinians and Arab leaders and upended decades of U.S. policy which 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.
“Trump must remember that 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.
Gaza Takeover Plan
Trump has said the United States should take over Gaza -, where many homes have been turned in piles of cement, dust and twisted metal after months of war – and move out its more than 2 million residents so that the Palestinian enclave can be turned into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
Trump meets Jordan’s King Abdullah on Tuesday for what is likely to be a tense encounter following the president’s Gaza redevelopment idea, including a threat to cut aid to the U.S.-allied Arab country if it refuses to resettle Palestinians.
The forcible displacement of a population under military occupation is a war crime banned by the 1949 Geneva conventions.
Catastrophe Feared
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.
“We have to issue an ultimatum to Hamas. Cut off electricity and water, stop humanitarian aid. To open the gates of hell,” far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said at a conference of the Institute for Ultra-Orthodox Strategy and Policy.
UN Warns Of ‘Immense Tragedy’
The Gaza war has been paused since mid-January under the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that was brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States.
More than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed in the last 16 months, the Gaza health ministry says, and nearly all of Gaza’s population has been internally displaced by the conflict, which has caused a hunger crisis.
Some 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.
Trump’s Aid Cut Threat
Trump’s ideas, which also include a threat to cut aid to Egypt if it does not take in Palestinians, have introduced new complexity into a sensitive and explosive regional dynamic, including the shaky ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
For Jordan, Trump’s talk of resettling some 2 million Gazans comes dangerously close to its nightmare of a mass expulsion of Palestinians from both Gaza and the West Bank, echoing a vision of Jordan as an alternative Palestinian home that has long propagated by right-wing Israelis.
Jordan’s Concerns
Amman’s concern is being amplified by a surge in violence on its border with the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Palestinian hopes of statehood are being rapidly eroded by expanding Jewish settlement.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on X on Tuesday that a resumption of activities should be avoided at all costs because that would lead to “immense tragedy”.
“I appeal to Hamas to proceed with the planned liberation of hostages. Both sides must fully abide by their commitments in the ceasefire agreement & resume serious negotiations,” he said.
The idea of a two-state solution has faded since 2014 when Palestinian and Israeli attempts at peacemaking in one of the most volatile and violent regions in the world stalled.
(With inputs from Reuters)
