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.
Under the ceasefire deal in force since January 19, the Palestinian group agreed to free three more hostages on Saturday. But it said this week it was suspending the handover because of what it said were Israeli violations of the terms.
US President Donald Trump responded by saying all hostages must be freed by noon on Saturday or he would "let hell break out". Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Tuesday that Israel would resume "intense fighting" if Hamas did not meet the deadline, but did not say how many hostages should be freed.
The standoff threatens to reignite a conflict that has devastated the Gaza Strip, internally displaced most of its people and caused shortages of food, running water and shelter, and pushed the Middle East to the brink of a wider regional war.
Israeli officials said government ministers had endorsed Trump's threat to "cancel" the ceasefire unless all the remaining Israeli hostages are released on Saturday.
Hamas has said it remains committed to the agreement but has not agreed to release the hostages on Saturday.
A Palestinian official close to the talks said mediators had stepped up their intervention "to prevent things sliding into a real crisis."
"Things are not yet clear, but there is a big intervention from the side of the mediators with both sides in an attempt to resolve the impasse and ensure no pauses in the ceasefire agreement," said the official, who asked not to be identified.
Asked for comment on where things stand, another Hamas official told Reuters, without giving details: "Contacts are under way."
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 a military offensive against Hamas that has laid waste the coastal enclave and killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
FEARS OF REGIONAL INSTABILITY
So far, Hamas has released 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 a multi-phase ceasefire deal. In addition, it has also returned five Thai hostages in an unscheduled release.
Negotiations on a second phase of the agreement, which mediators had hoped would include agreement on the release of the remaining hostages as well as the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, were supposed to be under way in Doha but an Israeli team returned home on Monday, two days after arriving.
The threat to cancel a 42-day ceasefire that formed the basis on the agreement has drawn thousands of Israeli protesters to the streets this week, calling on the government to continue with the deal to bring the remaining hostages back.
A plan announced by Trump to take over Gaza, move out its more than 2 million Palestinian inhabitants and redevelop it into an international beach resort could also fuel regional instability, senior Arab officials said on Wednesday.
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit told the World Government Summit in Dubai that if Trump pressed ahead with his vision for Gaza, he would lead the Middle East into a new cycle of crises with a "damaging effect on peace and stability."
Palestinians fear a repeat of the "Nakba", or catastrophe, when nearly 800,000 people fled or were driven out during the 1948 war that led to the creation of Israel. Trump has said they would have no right to return. Jasem al-Budaiwi, Secretary-General of the Cooperation Council, called on Trump to remember the strong ties between the region and Washington.
"But there has to be give and take, he says his opinion and Arab world should say theirs; what he is saying won’t be accepted by the Arab world," he said.
Trump has said the Palestinians in Gaza could settle in countries such as Jordan, which already has a huge Palestinian population, and Egypt, the Arab world's most populous state. Both have rejected the proposal.
Egypt will host an emergency Arab summit on February 27 to discuss "serious" developments for Palestinians.
Aboul Gheit said the idea of the Arab Peace Initiative floated in 2002, in which Arab nations offered Israel normalized ties in return for a statehood deal with the Palestinians and full Israeli withdrawal from territory captured in 1967, would be reintroduced.
Trump's plan has upended decades of US policy that endorsed a two-state solution in which Israel and a Palestinian state would coexist.
