Israel says Gaza ceasefire will end unless Hamas frees hostages by Saturday
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What are the main headlines of this episode?
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles and in the early hours of Wednesday the 12th of February, these are our main stories. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the Gaza ceasefire deal will end if Hamas does not free hostages by Saturday. Mr Netanyahu added that intense fighting would also resume. King Abdullah of Jordan has told President Trump that his country would take thousands of sick children from Gaza. In other news, the author Salman Rushdie has testified at the trial in New York State of a man accused of attempting to murder him. Also in this podcast.
It's a great relief. It's been very difficult, but we're all here. We're all together and we're looking forward to healing.
Washington says it secured the release of a US school teacher who had been held in Russia for four years. We speak to his sister. Israel and Hamas are midway through the first stage of a fragile ceasefire. So far, 16 Israeli hostages have been released in exchange for more than 500 Palestinian prisoners. Another exchange is due to take place on Saturday. But all that has been thrown into question. Hamas said they may delay the release because of what they said were Israeli violations of the agreement. The U.S. President Donald Trump says that if all hostages aren't returned by noon on Saturday, then, in his words, all hell will break loose. Meanwhile, after meeting his security cabinet, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said this.
The decision that I pass unanimously in the cabinet is this. If Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon, the ceasefire will end and the army will return to intense fighting until Hamas is finally defeated.
So is Benjamin Netanyahu really demanding the release of all hostages on Saturday, like President Trump? A question for our correspondent in Jerusalem, Wira Davis.
I think Mr Netanyahu has been deliberately vague. There are members of his cabinet who've come out and said they back Mr Trump 100 percent. And some unofficial comments from the government say, yes, that is what they want. They want all hostages released. But I think in practice, that will be very vague. unfeasible because it would mean Netanyahu unilaterally changing the terms of an agreed ceasefire. If Hamas, for example, on Friday afternoon, as they've done so far, give a list of three hostages to be released as was planned, and Netanyahu says all of a sudden, no, that's not enough, we want them all out. And in that case, war would resume. There would be huge repercussions in Israel. The vast majority of people in Israel, especially the families and supporters of the hostages, want the ceasefire deal to continue because they've seen regular releases of hostages. Now, of course, that would take Hamas to change its position.
Hamas yesterday said that they were suspending the release of hostages at the weekend because of what they said were Israeli breaches of the ceasefire agreement. If Hamas now changed their position and published the list of three, as they would have done anyway, I think it's going to be very difficult for Mr Netanyahu to insist that everybody should be released.
And meanwhile, Hamas have been saying that they want Qatari and Egyptian mediators to intervene to get the ceasefire deal back on track, in their words. By the sounds of things, it's going to be extremely difficult at this stage for mediators to make any difference.
The big challenge at the minute is how do we move from ceasefire part one, which is only two weeks before it finishes, to ceasefire part two, which would involve the release of more hostages and a longer-term agreement to formally end the war. Those talks haven't started yet, and that's going to take some effort. So the Israelis, the Hamas delegates, the Qataris, the Egyptians and the Americans are going to have to get round a table. Otherwise, there will be no stage two. And if there is no stage two, then the likelihood of a resumption of the war is more possible.
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Chapters
2 chaptersSpeakers
20 identified
Nick Miles 8 min
Tom Bateman 2 min
Evan Davis 2 min
Carl 2 min
Stephanie Prentice 2 min
Anne Fogel 2 min
Neda Torfik 1 min
Sharon Lifshitz 1 min
Steve Rosenberg 1 min
Joe Tidy 1 min
Unidentified 1 min
Celia Hatton 1 min
Barzad 1 min
Joanna Hudson
Emmanuel Macron
J.D. Vance (quoted)
Dalia/Fahed
Donald Trump
Benjamin Netanyahu
Rushdie Abu-Aloof
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