• Sat. Mar 15th, 2025

Trump warns 'all hell' will break loose if Gaza hostages not returned

Feb 10, 2025

Negotiators were due to meet in the coming days in Qatar to discuss the implementation of the truce’s first phase, as well as potentially the next phases which have yet to be finalised.

Talks on a second phase were meant to begin on the truce’s 16th day, but Israel had refused to send its negotiators to Doha for that.

The Hostage and Missing Families Forum campaign group said on Monday it had “requested assistance from the mediating countries to help restore and implement the existing deal effectively”.

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,” Katz said in a statement.

The military later said that it had raised “the level of readiness” around Gaza, and “decided to significantly reinforce the area”.

Trump on Jordan, Egypt

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

Trump said Monday he could “conceivably” halt aid to US allies Jordan and Egypt if they refuse to take in Palestinians under his controversial Gaza plan.

Trump is due to meet Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Washington this week.

The threat to withhold aid came after Cairo’s foreign ministry said it rejected “any compromise” of Palestinian rights, including “remaining on the land”.

Trump told Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier earlier Monday 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,” said Trump of the devastated Gaza Strip.

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

For Palestinians, any attempt to force them out of Gaza would evoke dark memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba” or catastrophe — the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.

Despite Trump’s words, displaced Gazans continued to stream back to their homes after Israeli forces withdrew from the Netzarim Corridor that cut the territory in two.

US and Egyptian security personnel were on the ground inspecting vehicles crossing the corridor, with one Gazan telling AFP the staff were “respectful” but the searches were “slow and trying”.

Ahmed al-Rai said “it takes 20 minutes to inspect each vehicle” and that he had to wait five hours for his turn.

‘Ill-treatment’

The Gaza war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history, which resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Militants also took 251 hostages, of whom 73 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.