Jerusalem:
Israel on Wednesday threatened to launch a “new” war on Hamas and implement US President Donald Trump’s plan to displace Palestinians from the ravaged Gaza Strip if the militants do not release hostages this weekend.
The remarks by Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz came shortly after Palestinian group Hamas said it would not bow down to US and Israeli “threats” over the release of hostages under a fragile truce deal.
Mediators Qatar and Egypt were pushing to salvage the ceasefire agreement that came into effect last month, a Palestinian source and a diplomat familiar with the talks told AFP, while Hamas said its top negotiator was in Cairo.
The truce has largely halted more than 15 months of fighting and seen Israeli captives released in small groups in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli custody.
But the deal, currently in its 42-day first phase, has come under increasing strain.
The warring sides, which have yet to agree on the next phases of the truce, have traded accusations of violations, spurring concern that the violence could resume.
Katz said Israel would resume its war if Hamas fails to free captives on Saturday, when a sixth hostage-prisoner exchange was scheduled under the terms of the agreement.
Hamas has said it would postpone the release citing Israeli violations, and hours later, Trump warned that “hell” would break loose if the Palestinian militant failed to release “all” hostages by then.
If fighting resumes, Katz said, “the new Gaza war… will not end without the defeat of Hamas and the release of all the hostages.”
“It will also allow the realisation of US President Trump’s vision for Gaza,” he added.
Israel has repeatedly vowed to defeat Hamas and release all hostages since the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war.
Analyst Mairav Zonszein of the International Crisis Group told AFP that despite their public disputes, the warring sides were still interested in maintaining the truce and have not “given up on anything yet”.
“They’re just playing power games,” she said.
– ‘Lives depend on it’ –
In Tel Aviv, Israeli student Mali Abramovitch, 28, said that it was “terrible to think” that the next group of hostages would not be released “because Israel allegedly violated the conditions, which is nonsense”.
“We can’t let them (Hamas) play with us like this… It’s simply not acceptable.”
In southern Gaza’s Khan Yunis, 48-year-old Saleh Awad told AFP he felt “anxiety and fear”, saying that “Israel is seeking any pretext to reignite the war… and displace” the territory’s inhabitants.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem warned that hostages would not be released without Israeli compliance with the deal.
“Our position in clear, and we will not accept the language of American and Israeli threats,” said Qassem, after Netanyahu threatened to “resume intense fighting” if hostages were not released by Saturday.
Last week’s hostage release sparked anger in Israel and beyond after Hamas paraded three emaciated hostages before a crowd and forced them to speak, while Hamas has accused Israel of failing to meet its aid commitments under the agreement.
Hamas has insisted it remained “committed to the ceasefire” and said its chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya was in Cairo on Wednesday for meetings and to monitor “the implementation of the ceasefire agreement”.
Egypt’s state-linked Al-Qahera News, citing an Egyptian official, said that mediators in Cairo and Doha were “intensifying their diplomatic efforts in an attempt to save the Gaza ceasefire agreement”.
UN chief Antonio Guterres has urged Hamas to proceed with the planned release and “avoid at all costs resumption of hostilities in Gaza”.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has facilitated the hostage-prisoner swaps, urged the parties to maintain the ceasefire.
“Hundreds of thousands of lives depend on it,” including “all of the remaining hostages” and Gazans who “need respite from violence and access to life-saving humanitarian aid”, the ICRC said.
– Trump’s plan –
Trump had proposed taking over Gaza and moving its more than two million residents to Jordan or Egypt — a plan experts say would violate international law but which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called “revolutionary”.
Hamas called for worldwide “solidarity marches” over the weekend to denounce “the plans to displace our Palestinian people from their land”.
Israel’s Katz last week ordered the army to prepare for “voluntary” departures from Gaza. The military said it has already begun reinforcing its troops around Gaza.
Trump reaffirmed his Saturday deadline for the hostage release when hosting Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Tuesday.
In a phone call Wednesday, Abdullah and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said they were united in supporting the “full implementation” of the ceasefire, “the continued release of hostages and prisoners, and facilitating the entry of humanitarian aid”, according to a statement from the Egyptian presidency.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Militants also took 251 hostages, of whom 73 remain in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,222 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures which the UN considers reliable from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)