Hamas says it will continue releasing Israeli hostages

Unlock the editor’s digest in free

FT editor Raula Khalaf selected his favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Hamas says it is committed to the ceasefire agreement with Israel in Gaza and will continue to be released from Israeli hostages as determined by the agreement.

This declaration seemed opposite of “until the next notice” to suspend the expression of the hostages by the Palestinian militant group this week. As a response, Israel was The threat of resuming the 16 -month -old war If the next party is not released as the hostages scheduled on Saturday.

Hamas Israel has justified the suspension of the threat of various violations of the ceasefire agreement, in which humanitarian assistance – especially in tents and shelters – in Gaza, most of which has been destroyed by Israel’s aggressively.

However, after negotiations with Egyptian and Qatari mediaters, Hamas said on Thursday that they had assured that they would address the “barrier” to the agreement and “close any gaps” in its implementation.

“Accordingly, Hamas confirmed the continued position of implementation of the agreement with what was signed with the exchanges of the prisoners under the specified schedule,” said the party.

Shortly after Hamas announced a report by Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Al Jazeera a report that heavy equipment and mobile home loaded loris were aligned to enter Gaza As “fake news” from Egypt.

“There is no access to the caravan or heavy equipment on the Gaza Strip, and there is no adjustment for it,” Netanyahu’s spokesman Omar Dustry wrote on X.

Hamas will have a fragile, three-step agreement by intermediaries earlier this year as three Israeli hostages in exchange for dozens of Palestinian prisoners on Saturday.

According to the terms of the first phase of the agreement, Hamas is expected to release about 5 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of 5 Israeli hostages, all children over the age of 5, hostages over the age of 5.

By last Saturday, it has released 1 16 Israeli hostages in exchange for the release of more than 700 Palestinian prisoners. It released the five Thai workers who occupied Israel in October 2021, which encouraged the war.

In the second phase, Hamas is meant to release all the living hostages – in exchange for several hundred Palestinian prisoners, withdrawing the entire Israeli from Gaza and a permanent end of the fight – is expected to begin in March.

However, the details are not yet to be discussed and Netanyahu, who is under pressure from far -flung ministers to resume the war after the first phase ends, said last week that he would continue to fight until Hamas was destroyed, and the second phase of the efficacy.

The possibilities of long -term war are also thrown into question by US President Donald Trump’s insistence that he wants to occupy Gaza and rehabilitate the population of 2 million people in other countries, including Egypt and Jordan.

Most of the Palestinian, the Arab world and the international community have sharply rejected the idea.

Signs of tensions around the agreement, Egypt on Thursday issued a list of the allegations of the agreement by Israel and it was alleged to have “not want to continue the ceasefire agreement and want to implement Trump’s displacement plan”.

The list includes various violations like flight on Gaza, which is responsible for a “informed Egyptian source. Been done, injured and injured 59.

The statement also criticized Israel’s delay in starting a second-level discussion and leaking “impossible conditions that cannot be accepted”.