A Hamas Authority said on Tuesday that Israeli hostages in Gaza can be taken home only if a fragile ceasefire is respected. The group ruled out the “threat language” after US President Donald Trump said he would “let hell explode” if they are not released.
Hamas has begun to release some hostages gradually under the ceasefire in force since January 19, but has postponed the release to a second order, accusing Israel to violate the terms by continuing attacks on the Gaza Strip.
Trump, an ally near Israel, said yesterday that Hamas should free all hostages by the militant group until noon on Saturday (15) or he would propose the cancellation of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Israel remains determined to recover all hostages.
“We will continue to take determined and relentless measures until we return all our hostages – the living and the dead,” he said as he said by the Israeli Mansour, after the military confirmed that he was killed during the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, which triggered the Gaza War.
Trump has enraged Palestinians and Arab leaders and overthrew decades of US politics that endorsed a possible solution of two states in the region. He tries to impose his vision of Gaza, devastated by Israeli military offensive that faces lack of food, water, shelter and needs outside help.
“Trump needs to remember that there is an agreement that must be respected by both parties, and this is the only way to take the prisoners back [israelenses]. The language of threats has no value and only complicates things, “Reuters Sami Abu Zuhri, senior representative of Hamas.
Trump stated that the United States should take control of Gaza – where many houses were transformed into cement, dust and twisted metal after months of war – and remove its more than 2 million residents so that the Palestinian enclave could be transformed into the “Middle East Riviera”.
Trump gathers with Jordan King Abdullah on Tuesday, which will probably be a tense meeting after the idea of Gaza’s reconstruction president, including a threat of cutting help to the US Ally, if he refuse to reset the Palestinians.
The forced displacement of a population under military occupation is a war -banned war crime by the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
Palestinians fear a repetition of what they call Nakba, or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or expelled during the 1948 war that accompanied the creation of Israel. Israel denies that they have been forced out.
“We have to give Hamas an ultimatum. Cutting electricity and water, interrupting humanitarian aid. Open the gates of hell,” said Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, at a conference at the Institute for Ultra- Orthodox Strategy and Policy.
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