The Palestinian militant group Hamas signalled on Thursday that a crisis threatening to unravel the Gaza ceasefire deal could be avoided despite uncertainty over the number of hostages due to be released on Saturday and disagreements over aid supplies.
The 42-day ceasefire has appeared close to failure this week amid accusations on both sides of violations to the agreement sealed last month with the help of Egyptian and Qatari mediators and U.S. support.
Hamas said it did not want the deal to collapse, though it rejected what it called the “language of threats and intimidation” from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump. Those leaders said the ceasefire should be cancelled if the hostages are not released.
“Accordingly, Hamas reaffirms its commitment to implementing the agreement as signed, including the exchange of prisoners according to the specified timeline,” Hamas said in a statement.
Hamas, whose senior leader Khalil Al-Hayya is visiting Cairo for talks with Egyptian security officials, also said both Egyptian and Qatari mediators would press on with efforts “to remove obstacles and close gaps.”
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer later told reporters that three hostages must be released — alive — by Hamas on Saturday for the ceasefire to continue.
Logistical issues with tents, mobile homes
This week Hamas accused Israel of failing to respect stipulations calling for a massive increase in aid deliveries and said it would not hand over three hostages due to be released on Saturday until the issue was resolved.
In response, Netanyahu ordered reserves to be called up and threatened to resume combat operations that have been paused for almost a month unless the hostages were returned.
Israeli minister Avi Dichter, a member of Netanyahu’s security cabinet, told Israeli public radio on Thursday that he did not believe Hamas would be able to get out of the agreement.
“There’s a deal. They won’t be able to give anything less than what is in the deal,” he said. “I don’t believe that Hamas can behave otherwise.”
Egyptian security sources told Reuters they expected heavy construction equipment to enter on Thursday and if that happened then Hamas would release hostages on Saturday.
The standoff between Israel and Hamas has threatened to reignite their conflict, which has devastated Gaza and taken the Middle East to the brink of a wider regional war.
Egyptian and Qatari officials have been working to avoid a breakdown, and a Palestinian official close to the mediation effort said both sides had agreed to go ahead with the ceasefire and the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
The talks in Cairo have focused on issues such as Israel’s allowing the entry of mobile homes, tents, medical and fuel supplies, and heavy machinery needed for the removal of rubble, Hamas said.
Salama Marouf, head of the Hamas-run government media office in Gaza, told Reuters only 73,000 of the required 200,000 tents had arrived in the enclave, while no mobile homes had been permitted so far.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency overseeing aid deliveries into Gaza, said 400,000 tents had so far been allowed in, while countries meant to supply mobile homes had not yet sent them.
International aid officials confirmed that aid was coming in despite considerable logistical problems, though they cautioned that far more was needed.
“We have seen improvement in some ways, but certainly, the response is nowhere near enough to meet the needs of so many people who face so much destruction and loss,” said Shaina Low, an official from the Norwegian Refugee Council based in the Jordanian capital, Amman.
She said shelter materials were going in, despite Israeli restrictions on so-called “dual use” materials, which could also be used for military purposes.
U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated Tuesday his vision for displacing people out of Gaza, in an appearance alongside Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, saying he thinks Palestinians — who have decried the proposal — would welcome his vision.
16 hostages released in latest pause
Adding to doubts this week about the ceasefire deal has been hostile reaction in the Arab world to Trump’s comments that Palestinians should be moved from Gaza to allow it to be developed as a waterfront property under U.S. control.
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi will not travel to Washington for talks at the White House as long as the agenda includes Trump’s plan to displace Palestinians from Gaza, two Egyptian security sources told Reuters on Thursday.
Under the ceasefire, Hamas has so far released 16 Israeli hostages from an initial group of 33 children, women and older men agreed to be exchanged for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in the first stage of a multi-phase deal.
Hamas also freed five Thai hostages in an unscheduled release.
Negotiations on a second phase of the agreement, which mediators had hoped would agree the release of the remaining hostages as well as the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, were supposed to be already underway in Doha but an Israeli team returned home on Monday, two days after arriving.
The threat to cancel the 42-day ceasefire that formed the basis of the agreement has drawn thousands of Israeli protesters onto the streets this week, calling on the government to stick with the deal in order to bring the remaining hostages home.
The Israeli military has withdrawn from an area of Gaza known as the Netzarim corridor that bisects the enclave, Hamas said on Sunday, a move that was expected under the ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Palestinian militant group. Thousands of Palestinians have streamed through the corridor in recent weeks, returning to their homes in the north from southern Gaza where they had sought shelter from the war.
The war in Gaza erupted after a Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed at least 1,200 people, according to Israeli government tallies, and saw more than 250 taken as hostages. Several Canadian citizens were killed on Oct. 7.
This triggered a relentless Israeli response that has laid waste the coastal enclave and killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
