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Netanyahu Says Israel Will End Gaza Ceasefire If Hostages Not Returned on Saturday

An Israeli soldier sits on a tank on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, as seen from Israel, February 11, 2025. (Reuters)
An Israeli soldier sits on a tank on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, as seen from Israel, February 11, 2025. (Reuters)
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Netanyahu Says Israel Will End Gaza Ceasefire If Hostages Not Returned on Saturday

An Israeli soldier sits on a tank on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, as seen from Israel, February 11, 2025. (Reuters)
An Israeli soldier sits on a tank on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, as seen from Israel, February 11, 2025. (Reuters)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that if Hamas did not release Israeli hostages by noon on Saturday a fragile ceasefire in Gaza would end and the Israeli army would resume its offensive in the Palestinian enclave until the group is defeated.

"In light of Hamas' announcement of its decision to violate the agreement and not release our hostages, last night I ordered the IDF to gather forces inside and around the Gaza Strip," Netanyahu said, speaking after a meeting of his security cabinet.

"This operation is being carried out at this time. It will be completed in the very near future," he said in a statement.

Hamas has begun releasing some hostages gradually under the first phase of a ceasefire reached last month, but said on Monday it would not free any more until further notice, accusing Israel of violating the terms with several deadly shootings as well as hold-ups of some aid deliveries in Gaza.

US President Donald Trump, a close ally of Israel, said in response that Hamas should release all the hostages held by the group by midday on Saturday or he would propose cancelling the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, which took effect on January 19.

"If Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon - the ceasefire will end and the IDF will return to intense fighting until Hamas is finally defeated," Netanyahu said.

It was not immediately clear if he meant the return of hostages who would be due to be released on Saturday, or all of those still held in the Palestinian enclave.

A Hamas official said on Tuesday that Israeli hostages could be brought home only if the ceasefire was respected, dismissing the "language of threats" after Trump said he would "let hell break out" if they were not freed.

"Trump must remember there is an agreement that must be respected by both parties, and this is the only way to bring back the (Israeli) prisoners. The language of threats has no value and only complicates matters," senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.

Israel denies holding back aid supplies and says it has fired on people who disregard warnings not to approach Israeli troop positions.

Netanyahu vowed earlier that Israel would ensure all its hostages were returned.

"We will continue to take determined and ruthless action until we return all of our hostages - the living and the deceased," he said following military confirmation of the death of one more Israeli during the Hamas-led attack that started the Gaza war 16 months ago.

An Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the prime minister met on Tuesday with the security cabinet, a select group of ministers, for almost four hours.

Gaza, one of the world's most densely populated areas, has been devastated by Israel's military offensive since October 2023 and is short of food, water and shelter, and in need of billions in foreign aid.

Trump has enraged Palestinians and Arab leaders and upended decades of US policy that endorsed a possible two-state solution in the region by trying to impose his vision of Gaza. He has said the United States should take over Gaza and move out its more than 2 million Palestinian residents so that the enclave can be turned into the "Riviera of the Middle East".

The forcible displacement of a population under military occupation is a war crime banned by the 1949 Geneva conventions.

Palestinians fear a repeat of what they call the Nakba, or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven out during the 1948 war that accompanied Israel's creation. Israel denies they were forced out.

Gazans interviewed by Reuters criticized Trump for saying he would be prepared for "hell" to break out if all the Israeli hostages were not released by noon on Saturday.

"Hell worse than what we have already? Hell worse than killing? The destruction, all the practices and human crimes that have occurred in the Gaza Strip have not happened anywhere else in the world," said Jomaa Abu Kosh, a Palestinian from Rafah in southern Gaza, standing beside demolished homes.

The Gaza war has been paused under the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that was brokered by Qatar and Egypt with support from the United States.

More than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, the Gaza health ministry says, and nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million population internally displaced by the conflict, which has caused a hunger crisis.

Some 1,200 people were killed in the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israeli communities and about 250 were taken to Gaza as hostages, Israeli tallies show.

Trump's ideas have introduced new complexity into a sensitive and explosive Middle East dynamic, including the shaky ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on X on Tuesday that a resumption of armed conflict should be avoided at all costs because that would lead to "immense tragedy".

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Arab World

Lebanon PM Pledges Reconstruction on Visit to Ruined Border Towns

This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)
This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)
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Lebanon PM Pledges Reconstruction on Visit to Ruined Border Towns

This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)
This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam visited heavily damaged towns near the Israeli border on Saturday, pledging reconstruction.

It was his first trip to the southern border area since the army said it finished disarming Hezbollah there, in January.

Swathes of south Lebanon's border areas remain in ruins and largely deserted more than a year after a US-brokered November 2024 ceasefire sought to end hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed group.

Lebanon's government has committed to disarming Hezbollah, and the army last month said it had completed the first phase of its plan to do so, covering the area between the Litani River and the Israeli border about 30 kilometers (20 miles) further south.

Visiting Tayr Harfa, around three kilometers from the border, and nearby Yarine, Salam said frontier towns and villages had suffered "a true catastrophe".

He vowed authorities would begin key projects including restoring roads, communications networks and water in the two towns.

Locals gathered on the rubble of buildings to greet Salam and the delegation of accompanying officials in nearby Dhayra, some waving Lebanese flags.

In a meeting in Bint Jbeil, further east, with officials including lawmakers from Hezbollah and its ally the Amal movement, Salam said authorities would "rehabilitate 32 kilometers of roads, reconnect the severed communications network, repair water infrastructure" and power lines in the district.

Last year, the World Bank announced it had approved $250 million to support Lebanon's post-war reconstruction, after estimating that it would cost around $11 billion in total.

Salam said funds including from the World Bank would be used for the reconstruction and rehabilitation projects.

The second phase of the government's disarmament plan for Hezbollah concerns the area between the Litani and the Awali rivers, around 40 kilometers south of Beirut.

Israel, which accuses Hezbollah of rearming, has criticized the army's progress as insufficient, while Hezbollah has rejected calls to surrender its weapons.

Despite the truce, Israel has kept up regular strikes on what it usually says are Hezbollah targets and maintains troops in five south Lebanon areas.

Lebanese officials have accused Israel of seeking to prevent reconstruction in the heavily damaged south with repeated strikes on bulldozers, excavators and prefabricated houses.

Visiting French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on Friday said the reform of Lebanon's banking system needed to precede international funding for reconstruction efforts.

The French diplomat met Lebanon's army chief Rodolphe Haykal on Saturday, the military said.

Arab World

Over 2,200 ISIS Detainees Transferred to Iraq from Syria, Says Iraqi Official

One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)
One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)
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Over 2,200 ISIS Detainees Transferred to Iraq from Syria, Says Iraqi Official

One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)
One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)

Iraq has so far received 2,225 ISIS group detainees, whom the US military began transferring from Syria last month, an Iraqi official told AFP on Saturday.

They are among up to 7,000 ISIS detainees whose transfer from Syria to Iraq the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced last month, in a move it said was aimed at "ensuring that the terrorists remain in secure detention facilities".

Previously, they had been held in prisons and camps administered by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria.

The announcement of the transfer plan last month came after US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack declared that the SDF's role in confronting ISIS had come to an end.

Saad Maan, head of the security information cell attached to the Iraqi prime minister's office, told AFP on Saturday that "Iraq has received 2,225 terrorists from the Syrian side by land and air, in coordination with the international coalition", which Washington has led since 2014 to fight IS.

He said they are being held in "strict, regular detention centers".

A Kurdish military source confirmed to AFP the "continued transfer of ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq under the protection of the international coalition".

On Saturday, an AFP photographer near the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria saw a US military convoy and 11 buses with tinted windows.

- Iraq calls for repatriation -

ISIS seized swathes of northern and western Iraq starting in 2014, until Iraqi forces, backed by the international coalition, managed to defeat it in 2017.

Iraq is still recovering from the severe abuses committed by the extremists.

In recent years, Iraqi courts have issued death and life sentences against those convicted of terrorism offences.

Thousands of Iraqis and foreign nationals convicted of membership in the group are incarcerated in Iraqi prisons.

On Monday, the Iraqi judiciary announced it had begun investigative procedures involving 1,387 detainees it received as part of the US military's operation.

In a statement to the Iraqi News Agency on Saturday, Maan said "the established principle is to try all those involved in crimes against Iraqis and those belonging to the terrorist ISIS organization before the competent Iraqi courts".

Among the detainees being transferred to Iraq are Syrians, Iraqis, Europeans and holders of other nationalities, according to Iraqi security sources.

Iraq is calling on the concerned countries to repatriate their citizens and ensure their prosecution.

Maan noted that "the process of handing over the terrorists to their countries will begin once the legal requirements are completed".

Arab World

Drone Attack by RSF in Sudan Kills 24, Including 8 Children, Doctors’ Group Says

Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)
Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)
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Drone Attack by RSF in Sudan Kills 24, Including 8 Children, Doctors’ Group Says

Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)
Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)

A drone attack by a notorious paramilitary group hit a vehicle carrying displaced families in central Sudan Saturday, killing at least 24 people, including eight children, a doctors’ group said.

The attack by the Rapid Support Forces occurred close to the city of Rahad in North Kordofan province, said the Sudan Doctors Network, which tracks the country’s ongoing war.

The vehicle transported displaced people who fled fighting in the Dubeiker area of North Kordofan, the doctors’ group said in a statement. Among the dead children were two infants, the group said.

The doctors’ group urged the international community and rights organizations to “take immediate action to protect civilians and hold the RSF leadership directly accountable for these violations.”

There was no immediate comment from the RSF, which has been at war against the Sudanese military for control of the country for about three years.

Sudan plunged into chaos in April 2023 when a power struggle between the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country.

The devastating war has killed more than 40,000 people, according to UN figures, but aid groups say that is an undercount and the true number could be many times higher.

It created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis with over 14 million people forced to flee their homes. It fueled disease outbreaks and pushed parts of the country into famine.