Israel will call off Gaza ceasefire if Hamas doesn't release hostages Saturday: Netanyahu
Hamas said earlier it won't free more hostages until further notice, citing Israeli ceasefire violations
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Tuesday the ceasefire in Gaza would end and the military would resume fighting Hamas until it was defeated if the Palestinian militant group did not release hostages by midday Saturday.
Following Netanyahu's ultimatum, Hamas issued a statement renewing its commitment to the ceasefire and accusing Israel of jeopardizing it.
The Israeli announcement came after Netanyahu met with several key ministers, including defence, foreign affairs and national security, who he said gave the ultimatum their full support.
After nearly 16 months of war, Hamas has gradually been releasing hostages since the first phase of a ceasefire began on Jan. 19, but on Monday said it would not free any more hostages until further notice over accusations Israel was violating the deal by targeting Gazans with military shelling and gunfire and stopping relief materials from entering the territory.
Israel denies holding back aid supplies and says it has fired on people who disregard warnings not to approach Israeli troop positions.
"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.
It was not immediately clear if Netanyahu meant Hamas should release all hostages that are held in Gaza or just those that had been expected to be released on Saturday under the ceasefire.
His office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request seeking comment on the prime minister's remarks.
U.S. President Donald Trump, a close ally of Israel, has said that Hamas should release all of the hostages by Saturday.
The prime minister also said he had ordered the military to gather forces inside and around Gaza, with the military announcing shortly after it was deploying additional forces to Israel's south including the mobilization of reservists.
Hamas dismisses Trump's 'language of threats'
A Hamas official said earlier on Tuesday that Israeli hostages could be brought home only if the ceasefire was respected, dismissing the "language of threats" after Trump said he would "let hell break out" if they were not freed.
"Trump must remember there is an agreement that must be respected by both parties, and this is the only way to bring back the [Israeli] prisoners. The language of threats has no value and only complicates matters," senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
So far, 16 of the 33 hostages to be freed in the first 42-day phase of the ceasefire deal have come home, as well as five Thai hostages who were returned in an unscheduled release.
In exchange, Israel has released hundreds of prisoners and detainees, including prisoners serving life sentences for deadly attacks and Palestinians detained during the war and held without charge.
'We must not go backwards': hostages' family group
A group representing families of hostages urged Netanyahu to stick to the ceasefire agreement.
"We must not go backwards. We cannot allow the hostages to waste away in captivity," the hostages forum said in a statement.
There are 76 hostages still in Gaza, more than 35 of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli media.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who was among key ministers who met with Netanyahu on Tuesday, said that if all hostages were not released by Saturday, the war should resume.
If that happens, Gaza's water, electricity and aid should be cut off and Palestinians there should be removed, he said.
"There will only be fire and brimstone from our planes, our artillery, our tanks and our heroic fighters. There will be full occupation of the Gaza Strip," he said.
Some 1,200 people were killed in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israeli communities and about 250 were taken to Gaza as hostages, Israeli tallies show.
More than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, the Gaza health ministry says, and nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million population internally displaced by the conflict.
Gaza, one of the world's most densely populated areas, has been devastated by Israel's military offensive. The enclave is short of food, water and shelter, and in need of billions in foreign aid.
Trump meets with Jordan's king
Trump has enraged Palestinians and Arab leaders and upended decades of U.S. policy that endorsed a possible two-state solution in the region by trying to impose his vision of Gaza.
He has said the U.S. should take over Gaza and move out its more than two million Palestinian residents so that the enclave can be turned into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
The forcible displacement of a population under military occupation is a war crime banned by the 1949 Geneva conventions.
Trump restated the idea that the U.S. should take over Gaza and permanently resettle its residents as he met Jordan's King Abdullah II on Tuesday amid widespread opposition to his plan among Washington's Arab allies, including Jordan.
Netanyahu, who was speaking after a meeting of his security cabinet, said the group "welcomed the president's revolutionary vision for the future of Gaza."
The security cabinet is a select group of ministers that includes defence, national security and foreign affairs.
Palestinians fear a repeat of what they call the Nakba, or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven out during the 1948 war that accompanied Israel's creation. Israel denies they were forced out.
For Jordan, Trump's talk of resettlement comes dangerously close to its nightmare of a mass expulsion of Palestinians from both Gaza and the West Bank, echoing a vision of Jordan as an alternative Palestinian home that has long been propagated by ultra-nationalist Israelis.
Amman's concern is amplified by a surge in violence on its border with the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Palestinian hopes of statehood are being eroded by expanding Jewish settlement.