By James Mackenzie, Jana Choukeir and Maha El Dahan
Israel’s military has called up reservists in preparation for a possible resumption of fighting in Gaza if Hamas fails to meet a Saturday deadline to release more Israeli hostages and a nearly month-old ceasefire breaks down.
Concern that the ceasefire will collapse is growing as fury mounts in Arab countries over President Donald Trump’s plan for the United States to take over Gaza, resettle its Palestinian inhabitants and build an international beach resort.
A Hamas official said Egypt and Qatar, which together with the United States mediated the ceasefire deal that went into force on January 19, had stepped up efforts to break the impasse and the Palestinian militant group’s Gaza chief, Khalil Al-Hayya, arrived in Cairo to discuss the ceasefire.
Hamas agreed under the ceasefire deal to free three more hostages on Saturday but said this week that it was suspending the handover over what it said were Israeli violations of the terms.
Trump responded by saying all hostages must be freed by noon on Saturday or he would “let hell break out”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then said on Tuesday that his country would resume “intense fighting” if Hamas did not meet the deadline, but did not say how many hostages should be freed.
Netanyahu said he had ordered the military to gather forces in and around Gaza, and the military announced it was deploying additional forces to Israel’s south, including mobilising reservists.
The standoff threatens to reignite a conflict that has devastated the Gaza Strip, internally displaced most of its people, caused shortages of food and running water, and pushed the Middle East to the brink of a wider regional war.
Gazans expressed alarm that the ceasefire might collapse and urged Hamas and Israeli leaders to agree on an extension.
“We had barely started believing that a truce would happen and that a solution was on the way, God willing,” said Lotfy Abu Taha, a resident of Rafah in southern Gaza. “The people are suffering. The people are the victims.”
The armed wing of Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, which is also holding Israeli hostages, warned that the hostages’ fate was tied to Netanyahu’s actions.
“The only way to retrieve hostages and for stability to come back is through a (hostage-prisoner) swap deal,” its spokesperson said on Telegram.
In a further sign of Arab anger over Trump’s vision of Gaza, two Egyptian security sources said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi would not go to Washington for talks if the agenda included Trump’s plan to displace Palestinians.
The date for such a visit has not been announced, and the Egyptian presidency and foreign ministry did not comment.
SOME HOSTAGES ALREADY FREED
The Gaza war was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which at least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were taken as hostages into Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
In response, Israel began its military offensive against Hamas which has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians in small, densely populated Gaza, according to Gaza health officials.
Hamas has freed 16 Israeli hostages from an initial group of 33 children, women and older men to be exchanged for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in the first stage of the ceasefire deal. It also returned five Thai hostages.
Negotiators hope a second phase of ceasefire talks will secure agreement on releasing the remaining hostages and a full Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza.
Palestinians fear a repeat of the “Nakba”, or catastrophe, when nearly 800,000 people fled or were driven out of Palestine during the 1948 war that led to Israel’s creation. Israel denies the account that they were forced out. Trump has said they would have no right to return under his plan for Gaza.
Trump meanwhile wants Saudi Arabia, which wields heavy influence in other Arab and Muslim countries, to normalise ties with Israel. Riyadh has previously said it will not establish ties with Israel without the creation of a Palestinian state.
Under his first administration in 2017-21, Trump brokered normalisation accords between Israel and some Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates.
United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan told U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday that peace efforts in the region should be on the basis of a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, state news agency WAM reported.
Trump’s Gaza plan upends decades of U.S. Middle East policy which called for a Palestinian state co-existing in peace alongside Israel as the solution to one of the world’s most complex and volatile problems.
Trump has said Palestinians in Gaza could settle in countries such as Jordan and Egypt. Both countries reject the proposal and Egypt will host an emergency Arab summit on February 27 to discuss “serious” developments for Palestinians.
Reuters
