Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel warned Hamas on Tuesday that if hostages were not released by noon on Saturday, the cease-fire in the war in the Gaza Strip would end and Israeli troops would resume “intense fighting.”
Mr. Netanyahu said that Hamas’s threat on Monday to postpone the next round of hostage releases amounted to a decision to violate the cease-fire agreement. Mr. Netanyahu did not specify how many hostages would have to be freed to stop a renewed war. The prime minister’s office declined to confirm how many hostages he was referring to.
His statements closely echoed President Trump’s ultimatum on Monday evening to Hamas that said if all remaining Israeli hostages were not released from Gaza by 12 o’clock on Saturday, then the cease-fire agreement with Israel should be canceled and “all hell is going to break out.”
Originally, three Israelis were to be freed this week in the latest hostage-for-prisoner exchange as required by the cease-fire deal to end the war that began with the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Most of the exchanges so far have taken place on Saturdays.
So far, 16 of 33 Israeli hostages set to be released in the first phase of this cease-fire have been freed. About 60 other hostages, some of whom are believed to be dead, were to be released later this spring under a second phase of the deal.
In a video posted after a four-hour meeting with his security cabinet on Tuesday, Mr. Netanyahu said that he and his top advisers had been shocked by the emaciated appearances of three Israeli men who were freed last Saturday.
“The decision I passed in the cabinet, unanimously, is this: If Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon, the cease-fire will end, and the I.D.F. will resume intense fighting until Hamas is decisively defeated,” Mr. Netanyahu said in the video, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
Mr. Netanyahu also reiterated his order on Monday night to reinforce troops in and around Gaza but did not specifically say they were planning to recapture territory from which Israel had recently withdrawn. “This operation is currently underway,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “It will be completed as soon as possible.”
In a statement Tuesday evening, the Israeli military said it was mobilizing reservists among the troops that would be part of the operation.
In its threat on Monday to delay the next round of hostages to be released, Hamas accused Israel of violating parts of the cease-fire agreement, including by slowing sufficient humanitarian aid in and around Gaza. Israel has denied the claim.
On Tuesday night, Hamas said in a statement that it was committed to the agreement “as long as the occupation adheres to it.” The statement added, “We emphasize that the occupation is the party that has not fulfilled its commitments, and it bears responsibility for any complications or delays.”
But more broadly, Hamas has been infuriated by Mr. Trump’s repeated proposal to relocate about two million Palestinians from Gaza and rebuild the war-torn territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Mr. Trump also said the enclave’s residents would not be allowed to return once they leave. The forced deportation of a civilian population is a war crime under international law.
After Hamas’s 2023 attack, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 250 others abducted to Gaza, Israel had bombarded the territory, aiming to decimate the militants. About 48,000 Palestinians have been killed during the fighting, according to Gazan health officials, who do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Millions of Palestinians have also been displaced in the enclave, and many are returning to neighborhoods in ruins.
Mr. Trump has said he would “make a deal” with Jordan and Egypt to take in the Palestinians — a move that analysts say would destabilize both countries, and that has been flatly rejected by their leaders.
On Tuesday, Egypt said in a statement released by a spokesperson for the foreign ministry that it intended to present to the United States a “comprehensive vision for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip” that “ensures the Palestinian people remain in their homeland.” Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, earlier scrapped tentative plans to visit Mr. Trump in Washington until further notice.
King Abdullah II of Jordan, meeting with Mr. Trump at the White House on Tuesday, said: “I think the point is, how do we make this work in a way that is good for everybody. Obviously we have to look at the best interests of the United States, of the people in the region, especially to my people of Jordan.”
He said that Jordan was willing to take in 2,000 Palestinian children with cancer or very ill “right away.” Mr. Trump called it “a beautiful gesture.”
Mr. Trump’s insistence that the United States had the authority to “take” Gaza and that other countries in the region would absorb the Palestinians who live there has ignited widespread anger among Arab states in the Middle East and even some American allies in Europe. It also raised concerns in Israel that Mr. Netanyahu now had a political escape hatch to end the cease-fire negotiations and instead return to war.
Hamas, in a statement on Tuesday, called Mr. Trump’s broader proposal of removing Gazans “ethnic cleansing.”
Responding to Mr. Netanyahu on Tuesday, a group representing the hostages’ families urged him to continue the diplomatic talks.
“You made the decision to bring all our hostages home through an agreement,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement. “We must not go backwards. We cannot allow the hostages to waste away in captivity.” It concluded: “Complete the full negotiations immediately, and bring back every last hostage with utmost urgency.”
The first phase of the cease-fire deal was struck last month between Israel and Hamas and was set to expire on March 2. Some Israeli officials have opposed a second stage of the deal that would include talks on how to fully end the war, urging the government instead to have the military continue fighting Hamas.
“Either all of the hostages are released by Saturday — no more phases, no more games — or we will open the gates of hell upon them, and this means no electricity, no water, no fuel, no humanitarian aid,” Bezalel Smotrich, the ultranationalist finance minister, said on social media after the security cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
Others want the negotiations, which have been held in Doha with the United States, Egypt and Qatar serving as intermediaries, to continue in order to usher in a lasting peace.
“Netanyahu, go to Doha,” the opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote on social media earlier on Tuesday. “Bring everyone home. Time is running out.”
The cease-fire agreement was already on shaky ground before Mr. Netanyahu’s warning on Tuesday, along with the dueling threats from Hamas and Mr. Trump leading up to it. With Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing government in jeopardy if the war ends with Hamas still in control in Gaza, it has been widely expected in Israel that he would try to delay moving toward a permanent cease-fire.
Already, some world leaders were bracing on Tuesday amid the signs that it was falling apart.
“We must avoid at all costs resumption of hostilities in Gaza that would lead to immense tragedy,” urged António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general. “I appeal to Hamas to proceed with the planned liberation of hostages. Both sides must fully abide by their commitments in the cease-fire agreement & resume serious negotiations.”
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