Israel has threatened to open ‘the gates of hell’ on Hamas if it refuses to release a batch of hostages on Saturday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered more troops to gather in and around Gaza in preparation, warning they will initiate US President Donald Trump’s plan to displace all Palestinians from the territory if the hostages aren’t freed.
Israeli reserve forces were called up, and Hamas ordered senior leaders to stop using their phones as both sides prepared for fighting in Gaza to restart.
It comes after the hostage release deal was postponed by Hamas, citing Israeli breaches of the ceasefire deal.
Hamas said it would not bow down to US and Israeli ‘threats’ over the release of hostages under the fragile truce deal.
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.
Israeli Defence Minister Katz said: ‘If Hamas does not release the Israeli hostages by Shabbat – the gates of hell will open on them, just as the US president promised.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered more troops to gather in and around Gaza in preparation if the fighting restarts
US President Donald Trump greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli soldiers patrol the Zikim Beach near the border with northern Gaza today
‘The new Gaza war will be different in intensity from the one before the ceasefire – and will not end without Hamas’s defeat and the release of all the hostages, and will also enable the realisation of US president Trump’s vision regarding Gaza.’
Mediators Qatar and Egypt were pushing to salvage the ceasefire agreement, according to a Palestinian source and a diplomat familiar with the talks, while Hamas said its top negotiator was in Cairo.
A spokesman for Hamas said: ‘Our position is clear, and we will not accept the language of American and Israeli threats. Israel must commit to implementing the terms of the ceasefire agreement for the release.’
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has called for maintaining the Gaza ceasefire.
It said: ‘The families of the remaining hostages need their loved ones to come home. People in Gaza need respite from violence and access to lifesaving humanitarian aid.’
Iran-backed Houthi rebels threatened to resume attacks on Israel if the Gaza ceasefire collapses, the group’s leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi said.
‘Our fingers are on the trigger, and we are ready to respond immediately if the Zionist regime intensifies its attacks on Gaza.’
An Israeli tank manoeuvres on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza today
He warned about the ‘security, military, and economic consequences of a potential escalation of conflict, regardless of US support for the regime.’
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.
Katz on Thursday ordered the army to prepare for ‘voluntary’ departures from Gaza.
The Israeli military said it has already begun reinforcing its troops around Gaza.
Trump had proposed taking over the war-ravaged Gaza Strip 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 spokesman Hazem Qassem said on Wednesday that Israel was ‘evading the implementation of several provisions of the ceasefire agreement’, warning that hostages would not be released without Israeli compliance with the deal.
‘Our position is 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.
Soldiers stand on top of a tank on the Israeli side at the border with Gaza today
On the Palestinian side, Hamas accused Israel of failing to meet its commitments under the agreement, including on aid, and cited the deaths of three Gazans over the weekend.
Hamas has insisted it remained ‘committed to the ceasefire’, and said that a delegation headed by chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya was in Cairo for meetings and to monitor ‘the implementation of the ceasefire agreement’.
A diplomat and a Palestinian source familiar with the talks both said that mediators were engaged with the parties to resolve the dispute.
UN chief Antonio Guterres has urged Hamas to proceed with the planned release and ‘avoid at all costs resumption of hostilities in Gaza’.
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 said he felt ‘anxiety and fear’, saying that ‘Israel is seeking any pretext to reignite the war… and displace’ the territory’s inhabitants.
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.
The Sheikh Ajlin neighbourhood of Gaza City which was damaged in the fighting
The two leaders called for Gaza’s ‘immediate’ reconstruction ‘without displacing the Palestinian people from their land’.
Egypt, a US ally which borders Gaza, earlier said it planned to ‘present a comprehensive vision’ for the reconstruction of the Palestinian territory.
A UN report has said that more than $53 billion will be required to rebuild Gaza and end the ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ there.
The war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which 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.
