Key Points
- Hamas has confirmed that releases of Israeli hostages from Gaza will proceed as planned.
- The group had previously threatened to delay releases after accusing Israel of violating the ceasefire deal.
- In response, Israel had ordered military reserves to be called up, signalling possible combat resumption.
Hamas says it will release the next group of three Israeli hostages as planned, in a reversal of its previous statement and raising the prospect of resolving a major dispute over the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian militant group had threatened to delay the next release of Israeli hostages, accusing Israel of failing to meet its obligations to allow in humanitarian aid, among other alleged violations of the truce.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had threatened to renew Israel's offensive if hostages were not freed.
"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 on Thursday.
Hamas said it did not want the deal to collapse, though it rejected what it called the "language of threats and intimidation" from Netanyahu and . Both have said the ceasefire should be cancelled if the hostages are not released.
Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer later told reporters that three hostages must be released — alive — by Hamas on Saturday for the ceasefire to continue.
This week, Hamas accused Israel of targeting Gazans with shelling and gunfire after the ceasefire had come into effect, as well as failing to respect stipulations calling for a massive increase in aid deliveries.
They said they 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.
Israel has also accused Hamas of breaching the agreement, including on Thursday evening when the military said Hamas had fired a rocket from Gaza that landed in the enclave.
The military subsequently struck the launcher, it said.
A source from Gaza's police said the rocket was an unexploded Israeli ordinance that had ignited and fired into the air while it was being moved away from a residential area.
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 stand-off between Israel and Hamas has threatened to reignite their conflict, which has devastated the Gaza Strip 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.
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 include 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 long-standing conflict in the Gaza Strip escalated after a Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 that killed at least 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies, and in which more than 250 were taken as hostages.
This triggered a relentless Israeli response that has laid waste to the coastal enclave and killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
