GAZA CITY: US President Donald Trump warned on Monday (Feb 10) that “all hell” would break loose if every Israeli hostage is not released from Gaza within days, after Hamas threatened to postpone further exchanges under a fragile ceasefire deal it said Israel was violating.
The truce that went into effect on Jan 19 largely halted more than 15 months of fighting in the Gaza Strip and saw five groups of Israeli hostages freed in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli custody.
But tensions have been running high since a shock proposal by Trump to take over the Gaza Strip and remove its more than two million inhabitants.
Trump said Monday he would call for the end of the ceasefire if every Israeli hostage was not released by noon on Saturday.
“But as far as I’m concerned, if all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday 12 o’clock – I think it’s an appropriate time – I would say cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
The ceasefire agreement says staggered releases should take place over the ongoing 42-day first phase of the deal.
A spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement earlier Monday that the next hostage release, “which was scheduled for next Saturday, Feb 15, 2025, will be postponed until further notice”.
The spokesman, Abu Ubaida, said the resumption of hostage-prisoner exchanges was “pending the (Israeli) occupation’s compliance and retroactive fulfilment of the past weeks’ obligations”.
The group accuses Israel of failing to carry out its commitments under the truce in time and of violating the ceasefire, including on humanitarian aid deliveries and after the Sunday deaths of three Gazans.
