Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened today with a return to war if the Palestinian movement Hamas does not release hostages kidnapped in Israel and held in the Gaza Strip by Saturday.
"If Hamas does not release the Israeli hostages by Saturday, the gates of hell will open, as the American president (Donald Trump) promised," Katz said after a meeting with the military.
According to him, the continuation of the war in the Gaza Strip will be of a different intensity than that which preceded the ceasefire, and will also enable the implementation of Trump's plan.
Katz was referring to the US president's plan to place the Gaza Strip under US control and relocate the Palestinian population to Egypt and Jordan.
A fragile ceasefire has been in place since January 19 between Hamas and Israel, while the Palestinian movement has said it will not give in to threats from Israel and the US.
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Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordanian King Abdullah II today stressed the "unity" of their countries' positions on the Gaza Strip, a day after the Jordanian king and US President Donald Trump met in Washington.
"The two leaders confirmed the unity of Egyptian and Jordanian positions, particularly on the need to fully implement the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip, continue the release of hostages and prisoners, and facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid," the Egyptian presidency said in a statement.
Sisi and Abdullah II reaffirmed the importance of "immediately launching the reconstruction process in the Gaza Strip, without displacing the Palestinian people from their land."
A statement from the Jordanian royal palace said the two leaders stressed their "common position" rejecting the forced displacement of Palestinians.
The two countries expressed their willingness to "cooperate" with Trump in achieving a "just and lasting peace" in the Middle East.
Egypt and Jordan have expressed strong opposition in recent days to Donald Trump's plan to evacuate Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
Trump has hinted that he could cut off aid to Egypt and Jordan if they refuse to accept the Palestinians.
After talks with Trump in Washington on Tuesday, Abdullah II reiterated his "firm stance against the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank."
"It's a uniquely Arab stance," he wrote on social media after the conversation.
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The Israeli army said today that it had shot down two men in the southern Gaza Strip who were operating an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that was allegedly flying from Israel to Gaza.
The military has previously claimed that there have been attempts to use drones to smuggle weapons.
The Gaza Health Ministry said a 44-year-old man was killed in an Israeli strike near the town of Rafah, without saying whether it was related to the Israeli military's claim.
Since January 19, when a ceasefire in Israel's war against the Palestinian Hamas movement came into effect, Israeli forces have killed 92 Palestinians and wounded more than 800, Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Gaza Strip's Health Ministry, said on Tuesday.
The Israeli army says it has been shooting at people who, allegedly violating the ceasefire, approached its forces or entered areas where access is not permitted.
The ceasefire is in jeopardy after Hamas threatened to postpone the next hostage release scheduled for Saturday because, it claims, Israel has violated the ceasefire agreement by shooting people and not allowing a scheduled amount of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, backed by US President Donald Trump, warned that Israel would continue fighting if the hostages were not released by Saturday. Trump threatened that "all hell would break loose" if Hamas did not release all remaining Israeli hostages from Gaza by Saturday, although the agreement calls for the release of a few, not all at once.
Egyptian state television Al-Kahera reported today that Egyptian and Qatari mediators are working to save the ceasefire agreement by ensuring that the implementation of the existing agreement is "balanced."
Hamas official Mahmoud Merdawi said there were indications that the hostages would be released on Saturday as planned. He told The Associated Press that mediators were working to finalize a deal on the matter, but that Israel had yet to commit to "fully implementing the terms of the agreement, especially the humanitarian protocol."
Israeli officials have not yet said anything about it.
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Israel has asked to keep its troops in five positions in southern Lebanon until February 28, a Lebanese official and a foreign diplomat told Reuters, citing Lebanon's opposition to the move.
Under a ceasefire agreement reached in November between Lebanon and Israel, Israeli troops had until January 26 to withdraw from southern Lebanon. Fighters from the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah were to leave the zone, while Lebanese troops were to be deployed in the area by the same deadline.
That deadline had already been extended to February 18, but a Lebanese official and a foreign diplomat in Lebanon told Reuters on Wednesday that Israel had requested an additional ten-day extension.
There was no immediate response to a request for comment sent to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but the commander of the Israeli army's Northern Command said he believed the terms of the agreement would be implemented.
"I think we will actually move next week and the agreement will be implemented," Maj. Gen. Ori Gordon said on Wednesday, according to Israeli radio GLZ.
Israeli military spokesman Avishai Adrae announced on the Iks network on Wednesday that Israeli troops would remain in Lebanon after the first extension and ordered Lebanese citizens not to return to their homes in the south of the country "until further notice."
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told Portuguese Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel on Wednesday that the European Union should pressure Israel to withdraw completely by February 18, according to a statement from Aoun's office.
The ceasefire agreement ended more than a year of conflict between the Israeli military and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which was taking place in parallel with the war in Gaza.
The fighting peaked during a major Israeli air and ground campaign that displaced more than a million people in Lebanon and severely weakened the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, with most of its military leadership killed in Israeli attacks.
Israeli forces remain present in parts of southern Lebanon, while the Israeli air force continues to carry out strikes across the country, claiming to be targeting Hezbollah weapons depots or the group's attempts to smuggle weapons.
Hezbollah said it did not accept Israeli justifications for remaining in Lebanon and called on the Lebanese government to ensure the withdrawal of Israeli troops. The group did not explicitly threaten to continue fighting. (REUTERS)
North Korean state media on Tuesday condemned US President Donald Trump's proposal to occupy Gaza and relocate Palestinians as "rabble" and accused Washington of "plunder", Reuters reported.
"The Palestinians' thin hopes for security and peace have been shattered by this proposal. The world is now boiling like a porridge pot because of the bombastic US declaration," the commentary carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, without directly naming Trump.
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said today that the displacement of Palestinians from their territory is "unacceptable for the Arab world."
"We Arabs have fought against this idea for a hundred years and we are not ready to capitulate now," Abul Ghait said at the World Government Summit in Dubai, responding to a question about US President Donald Trump's insistence that the Palestinians leave the Gaza Strip.
"Today the focus is on the Gaza Strip, and tomorrow it will be on the West Bank with the aim of emptying historic Palestine of its original inhabitants," said Abul Ghait.
"This is unacceptable for the Arab world," he added.
He confirmed that a summit on the Palestinian issue will be held in Egypt on February 27, adding that Arab countries have two weeks to reach a common position on the subject.
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