CAIRO (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump must remember that the only way to bring home Israeli prisoners is to respect the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters on Tuesday.
“Trump must remember that there is an agreement that must be respected by both parties, and this is the only way to bring back the prisoners. The language of threats has no value and only complicates matters,” he said.
Trump said on Monday he would propose cancelling the ceasefire and “let hell break out” if all Israeli hostages held by Hamas were not released by Saturday.
Hamas, due to release some hostages gradually under a ceasefire in place since January, has postponed freeing hostages until further notice, accusing Israel of violating the ceasefire’s terms by continuing strikes on the Gaza Strip.
Trump has enraged the Arab world by floating a proposal that the United States take over Gaza, move out its more than 2 million residents and transform the territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
Trump meets Jordan’s King Abdullah on Tuesday for what is likely to be a tense encounter following the U.S. president’s Gaza redevelopment idea, including a threat to cut aid to the U.S.-allied Arab country if it refuses to resettle Palestinians.
The forcible displacement of a population under military occupation is a war crime banned by the 1949 Geneva conventions.
The Gaza war, launched after Hamas attacks on Israeli territory in October, 2023, has been paused since mid-January under the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that was brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States.
(Reporting by Nidal al Mughrabi; Writing by Jana Choukeir and Michael Georgy; Editing by Peter Graff)
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