Donald Trump threatened that “all hell would break loose” if all Israeli hostages were not freed this Saturday after Hamas announced they would delay the next staged release.
The US President intervened after Hamas militants threw the precarious peace deal in doubt, accusing Israel of systematically violating the terms of the ceasefire.
Israel’s defence minister hit back, calling that a “complete violation” of the deal and ordered the Israeli military “to prepare at the highest level of alert” for any possible scenarios.
Trump said: “As far as I’m concerned, if all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday at 12 o’clock, I think it’s an appropriate time. I would say, cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out.”
Doubling down on his plan to create a “riviera” in the Gaza Strip and move the Palestinians out of the area, he also threatened to withold aid from Egypt and Jordan if they did not accept those being relocated.
Hamas were swift to respond to the US President’s latest intervention, telling Reuters: “Trump must remember that there is an agreement that must be respected by both parties, and this is the only way to bring back the prisoners. The language of threats has no value and only complicates matters.”
What was already an incredibly fragile and complex agreement appears, once again, to be on the brink of collapse at a critical moment as talks for the next stage of the multi-phased truce were supposed to be moving forward.
Its demise would crush the hopes of Palestinian civilians, who have survived 15 months of ferocious bombardment and want to rebuild their homes and lives.
It would shatter the hopes of the families of the hostages in Israel, who are desperate to see their loved ones and have grown increasingly horrified by the conditions of those being released.
And even if these issues are resolved, the brinkmanship exposes again how tentative a building block this deal is for long-term, sustainable peace.
Just hours before the counter-accusations of violations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said an Israeli delegation had returned from talks in Qatar for the next stage, with no news on how they have – or indeed if they have – progressed. In plea to the world, a group representing families of those taken captive by Hamas called for international intervention to help, fearing this is the last chance to get their relatives out.
“We have urgently requested assistance from the mediating countries to help restore and implement the existing deal effectively,” the forum said, adding “time is of the essence, and all hostages must be urgently rescued from this horrific situation”.
In Gaza, families that had only just been able to return to their devastated homes were worried that this could mean fleeing bombing again, with more death and destruction on the horizon.
It took the US, Egypt, and Qatar over a year to broker the deeply complex deal, after months of false summits and dramatic reversals: Each time, Palestinian and Israeli civilians paid the price.
