‘Release all hostages Saturday or all hell will break loose’, Donald Trump warns after Hamas delays release

Donald Trump has said the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas will end at noon Saturday unless all hostages are freed, after the terror group said it would delay the next release and the IDF readies for ‘any possible scenario’.

Donald Trump has demanded that all Israeli hostages are released by noon on Saturday (local time) or “all hell will break loose.”

Mr Trump made the remarks after Hamas announced it would postpone any further hostage-prisoner exchanges, accusing Israel of violating the terms of their fragile ceasefire.

Jerusalem said its military was readying for “any possible scenario” and the Israeli Defence Forces raised the level of alert and cancelled leave.

The ceasefire that went into effect on January 19 largely halted more than 15 months of fighting in the Gaza Strip and saw five groups of Israeli hostages freed in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli custody.

But tensions are running high amid Israeli fury over the emaciated condition of the most recent hostages released last weekend,

Mr Trump said the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas should be cancelled unless the hostages are freed on Saturday, attacking the “terrible” threat to delay the next hostage release.

“If all the Gaza hostages aren’t returned by Saturday at 12pm, I would say cancel the ceasefire. Let all hell break loose; Israel can override it,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.

However, he subsequently said any ceasefire cancellation was up to Israel.

“I’m speaking for myself. Israel can override it,” he said.

Asked what he meant by “all hell will break loose,” he replied: “You’ll find out and they’ll find out.”

He repeated his condemnation of Hamas’s treatment of hostages, saying the three men who were released at the weekend looked like holocaust survivors.

“They were in horrible condition. They were emaciated,” he said.

Israelis have become increasingly distressed by the handover ceremonies staged by Hamas, in which hostages are paraded on a makeshift stage with certificates and filmed praising their captors.

The emaciated state of Eli Sharabi, Or Levy and Ohad Ben Ami has increased fury in Israel, with captives’ families accusing the government of knowing that male prisoners were being abused and starved.

Mr Sharabi, Mr Levy and Mr Ben Ami have told their families they were kept chained and gagged, burned with a “white hot” object and hung by their feet, in descriptions that have horrified Israel.

The mother of Eliya Cohen, who remains in captivity, has said her son was held with returning hostages who told her he was has been chained in a tunnel for the entire length of his captivity, gets little food or daylight, and suffers from an untreated bullet wound to the leg sustained during the October 7, 2023 massacre.

Israel’s state broadcaster Kan said the men had been separately interrogated and tortured by their captors. Kan reported they were burned with a white-hot, unidentified object. At one point, the report said, one of the hostages collapsed, leading his fellow captives to think he had died.

Earlier on Tuesday (AEDT), a spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement that the next hostage release, “which was scheduled for next Saturday, February 15, 2025, will be postponed until further notice”, accusing Israel of failing to comply with the terms of the truce.

The spokesman, Abu Ubaida, said the resumption of hostage-prisoner exchanges was “pending the (Israeli) occupation’s compliance and retroactive fulfilment of the past weeks’ obligations”, without specifying.

“We reaffirm our commitment to the terms of the agreement as long as the occupation adheres to them,” he said.

The terror group accused Israel of delaying the return of the displaced Gazans to the northern Strip; shooting at Palestinians; blocking the entry of tents, prefabricated houses, fuel, and equipment to remove rubble; and delaying the entry of medical supplies.

The statement was issued as negotiators were due to meet in the coming days in Qatar to discuss the implementation of the truce’s first 42-day phase, as well as potentially the next phases which have yet to be finalised.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the Hamas announcement was a “complete violation” of the ceasefire agreement, signalling that fighting could resume.

“I have instructed the IDF (military) to prepare at the highest level of alert for any possible scenario in Gaza,” Mr Katz said in a statement.

But in a win for Israel, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas signed a decree on Monday cancelling legislation dubbed “pay to slay”, in which welfare payments to Palestinian security prisoners were based on the length of their sentences in Israeli jails and which also paid the families of terrorists killed while carrying out attacks.

The new decree states that welfare assistance to families of prisoners and slain attackers will be based solely on their financial needs, as is the case with other Palestinians.

Tensions have also been running high since Mr Trump proposed the US would take over the Gaza Strip and remove its more than two million inhabitants.

On Sunday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the displacement proposal as “revolutionary”, striking a triumphant tone in a statement to his cabinet following his return from Washington.

The proposal, which the United Nations and experts have said would violate international law, has already drawn widespread criticism.

And on Monday the US president told Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier that Palestinians would not have the right to return to Gaza.

“I’m talking about building a permanent place for them because if they have to return now, it’ll be years before you could ever – it’s not habitable,” Mr Trump said.

Asked if the Palestinians would have the right to return, he said: “No, they wouldn’t, because they’re going to have much better housing.”

He said he would build “beautiful communities” for Gazans elsewhere, and “in the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future”.

AFP