Hamas announced on Monday that it would not move forward with the next scheduled release of Israeli hostages, citing the Jewish state's purported "violations" of a tenuous ceasefire deal that is on the cusp of unraveling. The announcement comes after Hamas paraded several gaunt Israeli hostages across a stage in Gaza this weekend, drawing shocked reactions from the Israeli public and President Donald Trump.
A spokesman for Hamas’s military wing, Abu Obeida, accused Israel of failing to stick to the terms set forth under a three-tiered ceasefire agreement, which is approaching the end of its first phase. Hamas claims that Israel is not allowing displaced Gazans to return home and that it is still conducting military operations in the territory. The terrorist outfit did not provide evidence.
The move threatens to upend a ceasefire deal that was already fraying due to Hamas’s brutal treatment of the hostages it has already released. It also comes a week after Trump unveiled ambitious plans to take control of the Gaza Strip and turn it into the "Riviera of the Middle East." The hostages remain Hamas’s only bargaining chip, and without their return, Israel could restart full-fledged military operations in Gaza.
Defense Minister Israel Katz did not say he would do so when he responded to Hamas's announcement on Monday, though he did say he directed Israel's military "to prepare on highest alert for every possible scenario in Gaza."
Seventeen Israeli hostages are still scheduled to be released during the deal’s first phase, but Hamas said it would not move forward until Israel’s "ongoing violations" end. The announcement came just days after Hamas gunmen forced three malnourished Israeli captives—Ohad Ben Ami, 56; Eli Sharabi, 52; and Or Levy, 34; to make a speech before a crowd of Gazans in a stage-managed ceremony conducted alongside officials from the Red Cross aid group.
The scenes from that propaganda display—one of several Hamas has held before allowing hostages to go home—sent shockwaves across the Israeli public and drew an angry response from Trump, who said the hostages "looked like Holocaust survivors."
"I don't know how much longer we can take that," Trump told reporters on Sunday, casting doubt on the ceasefire’s durability. "People that were healthy people a reasonably short number of years ago, and you look at them today, they look like they've aged 25 years. They literally look like the old pictures of Holocaust survivors, the same thing."
"Who could take that?" the president added. "At some point, we are going to lose our patience. They look like they haven't eaten for months. There is no reason for this."
Hamas’s threat to further delay the release of hostages could provide Israel with the opening it needs to restart large-scale military operations in the Gaza Strip. Israeli leadership is already fuming with the terror group’s choreographed hostage release ceremonies, and Trump’s remarks on the matter reinforce the perception that the ceasefire is doomed to collapse.
Hamas, in a Saturday statement issued after it ushered the three malnourished Israelis across Gaza, said, "Our people and their resistance have the upper hand," signaling that the terror group retains an iron grip on the war-torn strip after more than a year of brutal fighting.
Those who have returned to Israel detailed abuse and starvation at Hamas’s hands.
"They're raping them, they're shocking them with cables," Eli Shtivi, whose son was killed on Oct. 7, told Haaretz. "We must say these things, people are looking at me here, wide-eyed, not getting it."