Israel said to tell Hamas ceasefire can continue if three hostages freed on Saturday
‘We’re working hard with mediators to get the deal back on track,’ senior Israeli official quoted saying; report claims talks between Egypt and Hamas ‘headed toward a breakthrough’
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
Israel has reportedly sent a message to Hamas through mediators Egypt and Qatar that the hostage release-ceasefire deal will continue if the terror group releases three more hostages on Saturday.
The message, which was first reported Wednesday by the Walla news site, came a day after Israel put out a series of conflicting statements, including by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which said Hamas must release “our hostages,” “9 hostages,” and “all of them” for the ceasefire to continue.
On Tuesday, the premier declared that “if Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon, the ceasefire will end,” and that the security cabinet “welcomed [US President Donald] Trump’s demand for the release of our hostages.”
A day earlier, Trump called for all hostages to be released by the terror group by Saturday, but Netanyahu’s statement, along with the statements from various Israeli officials, did not explicitly call for all hostages to be released.
“We are working hard with the mediators to get the deal back on track,” a senior Israeli official told Walla, while adding that as of Wednesday the agreement appeared less at risk of collapse than the day before.
A report by Qatari-owned outlet Al-Araby Al Jadeed quoted Egyptian sources saying that “things headed toward a breakthrough,” after a meeting between Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Rashad and a Hamas delegation in Cairo.
The Hamas delegation is headed by deputy politburo chief Khalil al-Hayya.
Efforts by Qatar and Egypt, as well as US special envoy Steve Witkoff, have resolved some of the outstanding issues, said the Al Araby Al Jadeed.
The sources added that a list of international organizations have been approved to bring fuel and medical equipment into the Gaza Strip, but Israel has yet to give the green light to bringing in caravans and more tents.
If Israel gives its approval for the caravans on Thursday, the sources said, there is time for Hamas to announce on Friday the names of the three hostages to be released the next day.
Earlier this week, Hamas said it was freezing hostage releases until further notice over alleged Israeli violations of the deal, including restricting the entry of some aid items such as tents to enter Gaza.
‘No point in discussing second phase’
Israeli television meanwhile reported that Netanyahu told Tuesday’s cabinet meeting that there was no point in discussing the second phase of the hostage deal at the moment, while the fate of the first stage was still up in the air.
“There is no point in discussing the second phase because it is just a hypothetical issue at the moment,” Netanyahu was quoted by Channel 13 news as saying in leaked remarks from the closed-door meeting.
The report said the meeting did not otherwise address the second phase, which is expected to see Hamas release all the remaining living hostages in return for an end of hostilities.
The three-stage ceasefire agreement, reached last month, halted some 15 months of fighting triggered by the group’s October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, when Hamas-led terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.
The deal requires Hamas to release all the hostages, Israel to release several thousand Palestinian security prisoners — including hundreds of terror convicts serving life sentences — and a halt to fighting in the Strip, followed by negotiations for a “sustainable calm” and IDF withdrawal from the enclave.
The three-week-old truce, only halfway through its first stage, has come under immense strain in recent days following Hamas’s announcement that it was pausing the hostage releases. Negotiations for the second and third stages have formally begun.
Also Wednesday, Channel 12 reported that during the cabinet meeting, ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Orit Strock from the far-right Religious Zionism party demanded that if Hamas fails to release the three hostages scheduled to go free on Saturday, Israel should round up and rearrest hundreds of the Palestinian prisoners it has so far freed under the deal.
The report said security officials balked at the demand, saying such a move was hasty and could endanger the lives of the hostages.
The proposal was rejected by the cabinet, the report added.
