Hamas has indefinitely postponed the release of Israeli hostages which were to be released from the Gaza Strip this weekend, a spokesperson said on Monday, accusing the government of Israel of having raped an agreement of this already fragile fire .
This decision threatens to derail both that the six -week truce accepted last month and the prospects for agreeing on a sustainable end in war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of Israel, consulted his best advisers on Monday evening and planned to raise a scheduled meeting with his security firm until Tuesday morning, said a senior official.
Hamas and Israel have both accused of raping various aspects of the ceasefire agreement, but they continued to release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners every week.
The declaration on the postponement of the hostage exit came shortly after the publication of a clip of an interview with Fox News in which President Trump said that the Palestinians would not be authorized to return to Gaza under his plan To move the entire population – that Hamas and a large part of the international, the community has categorically rejected.
A few hours later, a spokesperson for Hamas in Gaza, Hazem Qasem, said that “new requests are not acceptable”.
“We have an agreement to implement,” Qasem told a Saudi television channel, Al-Hadath. “We are open to ideas concerning a new form of Palestinian government and the administration of Gaza, but not to expulsion.”
While another spokesperson for Hamas, Abu Obeida, said on Monday that the exchange of hostages this weekend was pending, the mediators of Qatar and Egypt could work with Israeli negotiators and Hamas to find a resolution before. In January, the mediators helped the two parties overcome a separate dispute.
On another front, the president of the Palestinian authority, Mahmoud Abbas, ordered changes to the policy to pay the families of the Palestinians who are imprisoned or killed by Israel, even those involved in violent acts – a practice that has long been denounced by Israel and the United States States. The language of Mr. Abbas’s decree is opaque, letting not know how these payments would change.
In Gaza, a key point of tension between Israel and Hamas is the fate of the second phase of the agreement, which calls for a permanent end to fighting, a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the release of more hostages and prisoners.
Discussions on details were to start last week, but Israel sent civil servants to Qatar without a mandate to negotiate this part of the agreement, according to four Israeli officials, a country of mediation and an informed diplomat of talks, Who spoke under anonymity to discuss the delicate ceasefire.
Netanyahu suggested not to continue the second phase of the agreement if that means that the war will end. The war is below its wishes to destroy Hamas as a combat force and prevent it from checking on Gaza. For its part, Hamas insisted that the second phase understands the end of the conflict.
In a statement on Telegram on Monday, Mr. Obeida, spokesperson for the Hamas military wing, accused Israel of a multitude of violations of the Cessor Ceessor Aid and open fire on civilians.
In Gaza, after Hamas did not disclose a woman in hostage who, according to Israel, was to be released in January under the agreement, Israel delayed the agreed return of the Palestinians displaced to their homes in northern Gaza. But the exchange finally advanced and the hostage was released.
Cogat, the Israeli agency which oversees the Palestinian territory policy on February 7, said that more than 12,000 trucks had entered Gaza since the agreement was put in place, “in accordance with the terms.”
The widespread anger concerning the conditions of some of the hostages released so far – the malnourished, shaken by hostile crowds, parades in front of the cameras and, in some cases, was made under declarations of constraint of thanks to the activists of Hamas – Taken accusations in Israel that Hamas was not to comply with the ceasefire agreement.
A spokesman for the Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz described Hamas’ announcement on Monday “a complete violation of the cease-fire agreement and the hostage liberation agreement”.
He said he had ordered the soldiers of Israel “to prepare for the highest alert for each possible scenario in Gaza”. Referring to the attack led by Hamas in 2023 against Israel which began war, he added: “We will not allow the reality of October 7 to return.”
The six-week initial ceasefire agreement, which should last until March 2, called for the liberation of 25 living hostages and the bodies of eight which were killed in exchange for the liberation of around 1 500 Palestinians from Israeli prisons. About half of the exchanges were made.
He also forced the soldiers of Israel to withdraw from a key corridor with Bissection Gaza who had prevented the Palestinians who had fled to the south early in the war from returning home in the northern part of the territory. The Israeli army has completed its withdrawal from most of the region, known as the Netzarim corridor, Sunday in a step required to maintain the agreement to move forward.
But intermittent violence continued, in particular what the Civil Defense Agency in Gaza, which is part of the government managed by Hamas, said the murder Sunday of three people and the injury of several others by shots Israelis in eastern Gaza City.
The Israeli army said it had shot several suspects in the north of the Gaza Strip that day, including with warning, but has not provided information on the victims other than To say that “successes have been identified”.
