Hamas said Thursday that it will release hostages in the previously agreed timeline as part of its fragile ceasefire with Israel, in a reversal of its previous warning that it would indefinitely postpone hostage-prisoner swaps.
The Palestinian militant organization, which made the threat after accusing Israel of violating the terms of their three-week-old ceasefire, said in an official statement released on its website that it will “continue its position of implementing the agreement according to what was signed, including the exchange of prisoners according to the specified schedule.”
It added that it would continue to release Israeli hostages this week — it is scheduled to release three more captives Saturday — after a “positive spirit prevailed in the discussions” with mediator nations Qatar and Egypt about maintaining the truce with Israel that this week has been tested to its limit.
Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim told NBC News early Thursday that there were “positive signs of an agreement” on maintaining the integrity of the ceasefire.
The Israeli government had not yet responded to Hamas’ statement.
Concerns have risen this week that the hard-won truce between Israel and Hamas on Jan. 29 would collapse against a backdrop of President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Palestinians be displaced from the Gaza Strip and increasingly aggressive rhetoric from the White House and the Israeli government.
Hamas earlier this week said that Israel had violated the terms of the ceasefire by shooting at civilians, blocking the delivery of humanitarian aid into the enclave and inhibiting Palestinians’ passage to northern Gaza.
Thursday’s statement marked a turnaround in the organization’s stance after Trump threatened to let “all hell break out” in Gaza if the hostages were not released as planned and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel would resume “intense fighting.”
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz kept up his country’s bellicose response to the week’s back-and-forth briefings, issuing a statement late Wednesday in which he said that “the gates of hell will open upon” Hamas if it did not liberate any more captives.
Most of the Israeli captives being held in Gaza were abducted during the Hamas-led terrorist attack Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 kidnapped, according to Israeli officials. Under the first phase of the ceasefire deal, due to last 42 days, Hamas has incrementally released 16 of 33 hostages.
Since Israel began its military offensive in Gaza, more than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to local health officials, with most of its 2.3 million population forcibly displaced, according to local officials.
Katz’s remarks are characteristic of those across Israel’s hard right, which has representatives in the country’s coalition government and has in recent days been buoyed by Trump’s plan to eject Palestinians from Gaza and threats against Hamas.
Arab leaders have this week stepped up efforts to mediate the standoff and curb Trump’s plan to resettle almost 2 million Palestinians in neighboring Jordan and Egypt and redevelop the war-torn Gaza Strip into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
Egypt plans to host an emergency Arab summit on Feb. 27 after Trump extended an open invitation to President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to discuss the matter at the White House.
In a statement released by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, the country said it would work with Trump to “achieve a comprehensive and just peace in the region by reaching a just settlement of the Palestinian cause.”
