Netanyahu warns ‘intense fighting’ will resume in Gaza if Hamas delays hostage release

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday threatened to withdraw from his country’s ceasefire with Hamas and resume “intense fighting” in Gaza if the militant group does not release more hostages by midday Saturday.

Netanyahu’s warning followed President Donald Trump’s threat in recent days to let “all hell break out” in Gaza, after the Hamas reiterated Tuesday that it would indefinitely postpone the next round of hostage-prisoner swap scheduled for Saturday. The Palestinian organization has accused Israel of violating terms of their three-week-old ceasefire.

After a four-hour-long emergency meeting with Israel’s security cabinet Tuesday afternoon, Netanyahu said he had received unanimous support to mass Israeli troops in and around Gaza.

“If Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon — the ceasefire will end and the [Israel Defense Forces] will return to intense fighting until Hamas is finally defeated,” he said in a video statement following the meeting.

It was unclear whether Netanyahu was referring to the three hostages originally scheduled to be released on Saturday or all hostages held in Gaza.

While Hamas earlier this week said it planned to delay hostage releases — it has accused Israel of carrying out deadly shootings, blocking the delivery of humanitarian aid and inhibiting Palestinians’ passage to northern Gaza — it has since reaffirmed its commitment to the truce without explicitly reversing it position on freeing Israeli captives.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem told NBC News in an interview Tuesday that the militant group is committed to the ceasefire deal, to which “it adheres fully and not selectively as the Israeli side does.”

Responding to Trump’s earlier threat, Qassem added that Gaza was already “living in a state of hell.”

Nearly 16 months of war in the Gaza Strip were put on pause after a fragile, three-phase ceasefire deal came into effect on Jan. 19.

Under the first phase, due to last 42 days, Hamas has incrementally released 16 of 33 hostages as well as separately release five Thai hostages.

So far, 76 hostages remain in captivity in Gaza, with more than 35 of them believed to be dead. Most of those still held in Gaza were among the 250 people kidnapped during the Hamas-led terrorist attack Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed.

Since Israel’s military offensive in Gaza began, more than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed, with the majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million population forcibly displaced according to local officials.

In the Israeli prime minister’s statement late Tuesday, his rhetoric echoed that of President Trump, who on Monday demanded that Hamas free all remaining hostages “by Saturday at 12 o’clock.” The president did not specify whether he meant midnight or midday.

Trump doubled down on his position Tuesday following a meeting at the White House with Jordan’s King Abdullah, reiterating his belief that Jordan and Egypt should take in Palestinians displaced from Gaza.

The Jordanian king reiterated his “steadfast opposition” to Trump’s plan although he also said that Jordan could take in 2,000 Palestinian children from Gaza with cancer or other serious illnesses.

Last week, Trump suggested that the 2.3 million residents of Gaza should leave the enclave so that the U.S. could take over and develop the territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Netanyahu on Tuesday said the security cabinet had endorsed Trump’s plan.

This week’s rising tensions suggest the ceasefire deal may be “approaching a breaking point,” Yossi Mekelberg, a senior consulting fellow on the Middle East at the London-based think-tank Chatham House, said Wednesday.   

Mekelberg told NBC News that said that Trump’s comments make an already fragile situation more unpredictable.

“He sends the message that he wants to be the man for peace and every act that he is doing points to exactly the opposite direction,” he said, adding that the Israeli government should end “all this pandering to President Trump” at the risk of being “complicit in war crimes and probably destabilizing the Middle East.”

“I won’t be very surprised if it breaks even before we get to the end of the first phase,” he said, referring to the planned end of the ceasefire’s initial stage slated for March 2. 

While Trump’s suggested plan has received broad-based support across Israel’s political right wing, the families of hostages being held by Hamas also expressed their distress over the prospect of a breakdown in the ceasefire.

The Hostages Families Forum, a group representing the families of Israeli hostages, said in a statement Tuesday that “we must not go backwards. We cannot allow the hostages to waste away in captivity.”

Trump’s comments have also drawn widespread condemnation from the broader Arab world.

Speaking at a summit in Dubai on Wednesday, Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Trump’s plans to take over Gaza would lead to a new cycle of crises. According to Reuters, he added that “if the situation explodes militarily once more, all this effort will be wasted.”

Aboul Gheit also said the regional organization planned to reintroduce the Arab Peace Initiative, which was floated in 2002 to normalize ties with Israel in exchange for a statehood deal with Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Egypt plans to host an emergency Arab summit on Feb. 27 after Trump extended an open invitation to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to discuss the matter the White House.