Hamas says it will continue implementing the Gaza ceasefire deal and will follow through with the release of hostages this weekend in exchange for Palestinian security prisoners held in Israel.
The Palestinian militant group says Egyptian and Qatari mediators promised to remove obstacles preventing the continued flow of humanitarian aid and on Thursday morning lorries entered northern Gaza carrying mobile homes, earth moving equipment and medical supplies.
Israel passed on a message to Hamas signalling it would reciprocate if Hamas honoured its commitments under the ceasefire deal agreed last month − the first phase of a three-part process aimed at bringing a permanent end to the Gaza war.
The developments put the ceasefire back on track for now after Israel threatened to renew the fighting if Hamas delayed releasing hostages, as it had threatened to do.
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Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official based overseas, said that had the group not wanted to uphold the ceasefire agreement, it would have announced its decision to delay the hostage release only a few hours before Saturday’s handover date, and not several days in advance.
He told Al Jazeera that Hamas wanted to give the mediators and the other parties involved sufficient time to force Israel into honouring the agreement, and not to allow the ceasefire to collapse.
US president Donald Trump had warned that “all hell is going to break out” if Hamas failed to release all the hostages being held in Gaza by Saturday, and appeared to give Israel a green light on how it chose to respond.
On Friday Hamas is due to release the names of the three hostages to be released on Saturday. Six other living hostages and eight bodies are due to be handed over this month, during the first stage of the ceasefire, but Israel says it wants them released in “the coming days”.
The sides were due to start discussions on the next stage of the ceasefire last week but prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu remains reluctant to commit to a permanent end to the war, fearing that such a move could topple his coalition due to far-right opposition.
Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel on October 7th, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
In response, Israel launched an air and ground war in Gaza that has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, and devastated much of the narrow enclave.
