The ceasefire with Palestinian militant group Hamas will end and Israeli forces will resume their military offensive in Gaza if hostages are not released by midday on Saturday as scheduled, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday.

“If Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon, the ceasefire will end, and the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] will return to intense fighting until Hamas is finally defeated,” he said after a meeting of the country’s Security Cabinet.

The Israeli prime minister’s comment came a day after Hamas said it would delay the release of hostages planned for Saturday until further notice because of what it claimed were “Israeli violations” of the ceasefire.

The militant group has accused Israel of attacking the residents of Gaza in violation of the ceasefire.

Netanyahu said that the Security Cabinet had welcomed United States President Donald Trump’s demand for the release of hostages by noon on Saturday, “and we all also welcomed the president’s revolutionary vision for the future of Gaza”.

Trump’s Gaza comments

Trump had said on Monday that he would propose to cancel the truce between Israel and Hamas if all Israeli hostages were not returned by Saturday.

“As far as I am concerned, if all of the hostages are not returned by Saturday [February 15] 12 o’clock – I think it’s an appropriate time – I would say cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

Trump also said that he could cut aid to Egypt and Jordan if they refused his demand to permanently take in most Palestinians residing in Gaza.

The US president was building on the proposal he had floated in January that he would urge the leaders of Jordan and Egypt to accept Palestinians from Gaza, so that “we just clean out that whole thing”.

The two West Asian nations, the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank region, and Hamas have rejected Trump’s proposal.

After meeting Trump on Tuesday, Jordanian King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein said that he had reiterated Jordan’s stance and the “unified Arab position” against the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. “Rebuilding Gaza without displacing the Palestinians and addressing the dire humanitarian situation should be the priority for all,” he said.

The first six-week phase of the Gaza ceasefire began on January 19 and involves the exchange of 33 hostages for hundreds of Palestinian detainees in Israel. While Hamas has so far released 16 Israeli hostages, 566 Palestinian prisoners have been freed.

Israel’s military offensive against Gaza began on October 7, 2023, after Hamas launched an incursion into southern Israel, killing 1,200 persons and taking more than 200 hostages. Israel has been carrying out unprecedented air and ground strikes on Gaza since then, killing more than 47,700 persons, including over 17,400 children. About 400 Israeli soldiers have died in the conflict.

Some of the hostages were released in November 2023 as part of a brief ceasefire deal and some were killed as a result of the war.

The agreement also allows hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to return to their neighbourhoods in Gaza. About 1.9 million people in Gaza have been displaced since October 2023, according to the United Nations’ Palestine refugee agency.

According to the United Nations, 92% of the housing units in Gaza have either been destroyed or damaged in the Israeli attacks.