Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video statement Tuesday that if Hamas doesn’t release Israeli hostages in Gaza by noon on Saturday, the Gaza ceasefire will end, and Israel will restart its genocidal war.
“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,” Netanyahu said.
The statement comes after President Trump’s call for the ceasefire to be “canceled” if Hamas doesn’t release the hostages by Saturday. Trump stressed that all remaining hostages should be released, while Netanyahu didn’t specify a number.
An Israeli official speaking to The Times of Israel said Israel will resume bombing Gaza if nine hostages are not released by Saturday, which is not part of the current truce deal. There are still 17 hostages held by Hamas that are supposed to be released under the first phase of the ceasefire, but only nine are believed to be alive.
Hamas is scheduled to release three hostages on Saturday under the deal but has said that release is postponed until Israel stops violating the ceasefire. Netanyahu and the Israeli official speaking to the Times said their demand was justified, claiming that Hamas’s announcement was justified. But Israeli officials admitted to The New York Times that Hamas’s claims about Israel’s truce violations were accurate.
Under the ceasefire deal, Israel agreed to allow hundreds of thousands of tents into Gaza, but only a fraction of that number have entered. Israel has also blocked mobile homes from entering Gaza, and Israeli forces have killed at least 92 Palestinians since the truce went into effect on January 19.
Hamas announced it was postponing the hostage release after repeated calls from President Trump that Palestinians in Gaza must be removed permanently under his plan for the US to “take over” the Gaza Strip. Trump’s calls have emboldened elements of the Israeli government that have opposed the ceasefire deal.
“Mr. Prime Minister, I call on you, following such a moral, simple, and clear statement by President Trump, to inform Hamas unequivocally: Either all the hostages are released by Saturday – the beatings are over, the games are over, or the gates of hell are opened on them, and that means no electricity, no water, no fuel, no humanitarian aid,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich wrote on X.
“There is only fire and brimstone from our planes and artillery and tanks and our heroic fighters. There is a complete occupation of the Gaza Strip. There is an expulsion of all Gazans from the Strip in continuation of President Trump’s plan, there is a taking of territory and the imposition of sovereignty over it, because this is the painful price that our enemy understands,” he added.
Itamar Ben Gvir, leader of the Jewish Power party who quit the government over the ceasefire deal, said Trump is “giving the government the green light to rain fire and hell on Gaza if all our hostages are not released, and the government prefers to continue down the reckless path.”
