Netanyahu: ‘Intense fighting’ to resume in Gaza if hostages not released by Saturday
While PM’s statement does not explicitly call for all captives to be returned by week’s end, as Trump has demanded, an unnamed senior official later says Israel wants ‘all of them’
The ceasefire will be over and Israel will resume “intense fighting” in Gaza if Hamas doesn’t release “our hostages” by midday Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video statement Tuesday evening, after a four-hour security cabinet meeting.
“If Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon, the ceasefire will end, and the IDF will return to intense fighting until Hamas is finally defeated,” he declared.
The premier said that the security cabinet “welcomed [US President Donald] Trump’s demand for the release of our hostages by Saturday noon, and we all also welcomed the president’s revolutionary vision for the future of Gaza.”
The meeting came a day after Hamas said it would delay Saturday’s hostage release until further notice due to what it claimed were “Israeli violations” of the truce.
Later on Tuesday evening, Hamas issued a statement claiming it was “committed to the ceasefire agreement that the (Israeli) occupation also committed to,” and asserting that Israel was “the party that did not abide by its commitments and is responsible for any complications or delays.” However, it did not say that it would release three hostages on Saturday as required by the deal.
On Monday, Trump called for all hostages to be released by the terror group by Saturday, but Netanyahu’s statement only called for Hamas to return “our hostages” without explicitly demanding the release of all 76 remaining hostages by the president’s deadline.
Before and after the prime minister’s video statement, Israeli officials made several contradictory and conflicting messages about the number of hostages that Israel is demanding be released by Saturday.
First, an Israeli official said that the security cabinet “unanimously” backed Trump’s call for hostages to be released Saturday, in carefully worded Hebrew comments that stopped short of a complete endorsement of the US president’s position, and notably did not refer to “all” hostages.
“All cabinet members expressed support for US President Donald Trump’s demand for the release of our hostages by noon on Shabbat,” the key sentence specified.
Next, an Israeli official said that Jerusalem would not move forward with the hostage release-ceasefire deal unless Hamas released “all nine hostages… in the coming days.” There are 17 hostages still set to return during the current first phase of the ceasefire, nine of whom are believed to be alive.
“Hamas violated the agreement,” this official said, “and therefore there will not be progress in continuing to carry out the agreement or in negotiations on the second stage without the return of our hostages.”
About 15 minutes after Netanyahu had released his video statement, an Israeli official told the Ynet news site that the security cabinet “partially adopted” Trump’s demands. “We are relying on the US president’s ultimatum and we want to see how Hamas reacts,” the official said.
“Since we didn’t violate the agreement, but rather Hamas did, there is justification for our side violating the agreement. Israel is saying: ‘Hold me back.’ We want to see how Hamas responds to this,” this official said. “There’s a reason Netanyahu didn’t give a number” of hostages to be released by Saturday in his statement, said the official.
Finally, however, about an hour after Netanyahu’s had issued his video statement, a senior official said that Israel is demanding that “all of them” be released by Hamas.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu and the cabinet are sticking to US President Trump’s message about the release of hostages,” this official said. “That is, that all of them will go out on Shabbat.”
At the same time, even this senior official did not use the actual phrase “all the hostages,” potentially leaving room, at a stretch, for an interpretation according to which Israel is demanding all the three hostages slated to be released on Saturday, or all the nine living hostages to be released in the first phase.
The numerous statements from Netanyahu and the unnamed Israeli officials came after, earlier in the day, Channel 12 reported that Israel would continue to adhere to the ceasefire deal with Hamas if the terror group released the sixth group of hostages on Saturday in accordance with the terms of the agreement.
Security chiefs: Don’t stop the hostage releases
On Tuesday evening, Channel 12 reported that Israeli security chiefs have told the political leadership that Israel needs to try to see phase one of the Gaza deal through to its end, and get out as many hostages as possible.
“We need to show restraint right now, to completely finish phase one,” the TV report quoted an unnamed security source as saying. “We must not cut off the dynamic of the hostage releases. The framework is working. The mediators are guaranteeing the agreement and there’s no real reason to stop the sequence right now.”
The report also quoted an unnamed military source, adding: “We have very significant offensive tools and are giving [the political leadership] all the options. One has to understand how things develop and take President Trump’s ultimatum and leverage it effectively to secure the release of as many hostages as possible.
“If there is no progress that gets the deal back on track, decisions must be made,” the source added. “Hamas is being faced with the massive scale of destruction [in Gaza], is counting the dead and publishing the list of its dead commanders.”
“As regards the burly young men in the crisply ironed uniforms at the hostage release ceremonies,” the military source sneered, “it’s likely that these are operatives who were too scared to get entangled with IDF troops, and hid out in humanitarian zones until the ceasefire started. And we will know how to go back and hit them.”
Tuesday’s security cabinet meeting, which was called to discuss Israel’s response to the Hamas announcement that it would freeze future hostage releases until further notice, stretched for four hours. An Israeli official described the Hamas announcement as a decision by the terror group “to breach the deal.”
The meeting was “thorough and in-depth,” according to the official.
The statement added that the security cabinet “unanimously” supports Trump’s “revolutionary vision for the future of Gaza,” referring to the president’s stated post-war plans for “voluntary” but permanent relocation of the entirety of the Strip’s population outside of the enclave.
Hamas said on Tuesday that Trump’s threat to “let hell break out” on Gaza if all hostages are not returned by Saturday “has no value and further complicates matters.”
“Trump must remember that there is an agreement that must be respected by both parties and this is the only way to return the prisoners,” Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP, referring to the hostages.
The terror group justified its decision to freeze the hostage releases by alleging Israeli violations of the deal, claiming falsely that the military has obstructed displaced Palestinians’ return to the northern Strip, and asserting that Israel has prevented the flow of some humanitarian aid items, such as trailers for temporary shelter, into the enclave.
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 its hostages, Israel to release thousands of Palestinian security prisoners — including hundreds serving life sentences — and a halt to fighting in the Strip, followed by negotiations for a “sustainable calm” and IDF withdrawal from the enclave.
Negotiations on the agreement’s second phase — to include the return of the remaining 59 hostages, the release of many more Palestinian security prisoners, a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a permanent ceasefire — were meant to begin last week.
However, after the premier’s visit to the US, Hamas’s decision to halt the hostage releases, Trump’s ultimatum and Netanyahu’s video statement on Tuesday vowing to continue fighting in Gaza if hostages are not released on Saturday has put the entire deal — not just its second phase — on the verge of collapse.
In line with these developments, the Israeli military announced Tuesday that it is “extensively” bolstering its forces in the Southern Command, calling up reservists and approving battle plans for the Gaza Strip in the event that the ceasefire-hostage deal with Hamas collapses.
Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.
