‘We’re working hard with mediators to get the deal back on track,’ senior Israeli official tells news site; report says talks between Egypt and Hamas ‘headed toward a breakthrough’
Today, 1:50 am
Israel has reportedly sent a message to Hamas through mediators Egypt and Qatar that the hostage release-ceasefire deal will continue if the terror group releases three more hostages on Saturday.
The message, which was first reported Wednesday by the Walla news site, came a day after Israel put out a series of conflicting statements, including by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which said Hamas must release “our hostages,” “9 hostages,” and “all of them” for the ceasefire to continue.
On Tuesday, the premier declared that “if Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon, the ceasefire will end,” and that the security cabinet “welcomed [US President Donald] Trump’s demand for the release of our hostages.”
A day earlier, Trump called for all hostages to be released by the terror group by Saturday, but Netanyahu’s statement, along with the statements from various Israeli officials, did not explicitly call for all hostages to be released.
“We are working hard with the mediators to get the deal back on track,” a senior Israeli official told Walla, while adding that as of Wednesday the agreement appeared less at risk of collapse than the day before.
The Hamas delegation is headed by deputy politburo chief Khalil al-Hayya.
Efforts by Qatar and Egypt, as well as US special envoy Steve Witkoff, have resolved some of the outstanding issues, said the Al Araby Al Jadeed.
If Israel gives its approval for the caravans on Thursday, the sources said, there is time for Hamas to announce on Friday the names of the three hostages to be released the next day.
The report said the meeting did not otherwise address the second phase, which is expected to see Hamas release all the remaining living hostages in return for an end of hostilities.
The three-stage ceasefire agreement, reached last month, halted some 15 months of fighting triggered by the group’s October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, when Hamas-led terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.
The deal requires Hamas to release all the hostages, Israel to release several thousand Palestinian security prisoners — including hundreds of terror convicts serving life sentences — and a halt to fighting in the Strip, followed by negotiations for a “sustainable calm” and IDF withdrawal from the enclave.
The three-week-old truce, only halfway through its first stage, has come under immense strain in recent days following Hamas’s announcement that it was pausing the hostage releases. Negotiations for the second and third stages have formally begun.
Also Wednesday, Channel 12 reported that during the cabinet meeting, ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Orit Strock from the far-right Religious Zionism party demanded that if Hamas fails to release the three hostages scheduled to go free on Saturday, Israel should round up and rearrest hundreds of the Palestinian prisoners it has so far freed under the deal.
The report said security officials balked at the demand, saying such a move was hasty and could endanger the lives of the hostages.
The proposal was rejected by the cabinet, the report added.
Content retrieved from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-to-tell-hamas-ceasefire-can-continue-if-three-hosatges-freed-on-saturday/.
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