Israeli minister backs Trump’s plan to ‘let hell break out’ on Gaza if Israeli hostages are not released by Saturday
Israel’s communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, has backed Trump’s call to “let hell break out” on Gaza if all the remaining Israeli captives are not released by Saturday.
In a post on X he said:
The response must be exactly as President Trump suggested.
Completely halt humanitarian aid, cut off electricity, water and communications and use brutal and disproportionate force until the hostages return.
He added:
It is time to open the gates of hell on Hamas – and this time, without any restrictions on our heroic fighters.
Key events
Sandwiched between Saudi Arabia, Syria, Israel and the occupied West Bank, Jordan is already home to more than 2 million Palestinian refugees in its population of 11 million.
Amman has come to depend on Washington as its largest source of economic and military assistance for decades, which now stands at more than $1bn a year.
Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994 but has strained relations with its neighbour. Many Jordanians have strong connections to Gaza and are supporters of the Palestinian cause.
Jordan’s King Abdullah has been meeting with some of Donald Trump’s advisers, including national security advisor Mike Waltz, ahead of the pair’s discussion expected to take place later today (11:30 ET; 16:30 GMT).
Israeli minister backs Trump’s plan to ‘let hell break out’ on Gaza if Israeli hostages are not released by Saturday
Israel’s communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, has backed Trump’s call to “let hell break out” on Gaza if all the remaining Israeli captives are not released by Saturday.
In a post on X he said:
The response must be exactly as President Trump suggested.
Completely halt humanitarian aid, cut off electricity, water and communications and use brutal and disproportionate force until the hostages return.
He added:
It is time to open the gates of hell on Hamas – and this time, without any restrictions on our heroic fighters.
UN humanitarian officials have said that while aid flows into Gaza had improved since a ceasefire deal took effect on 19 January, they fell short of the needs on the ground.
UN humanitarian office (OCHA) spokesperson Jens Laerke told a Geneva press briefing: “We have been able to scale up humanitarian operations significantly with food, medical and shelter supplies and other aid during the ceasefire period.”
But Edem Wosornu, director of OCHA’s Operations and Advocacy division, told a gathering of Geneva-based diplomats: “We can never match the needs right now. Gaza is completely devastated, infrastructure is not where it should be. We will try our best. The trucks are but a drop in the ocean.”
Egyptian president says Gaza reconstruction should happen ‘without displacement’ of Palestinians
The Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has made comments about Gaza during a phone call with Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen, according to a statement from his office.
US President Donald Trump said yesterday that he could cut aid to Jordan and Egypt if they refused his demand to permanently take in most Palestinian people from Gaza, in what is widely seen as a proposal for what amounts to ethnic cleansing. Jordan and Egypt have both rejected Trump’s “take over” plan.
A readout form el-Sisi’s phone call with Frederiksen states:
President El-Sisi and the Danish Prime Minister reiterated the crucial need for the full implementation of the ceasefire agreement in its three stages, the exchange of hostages and detainees, as well as facilitating immediate and unfettered access for humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip to end the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the sector.
They also underscored the imperative to begin the reconstruction of Gaza to make it livable again, without displacing its Palestinian population, safeguarding their rights and ability to live on their land.
The phone call reaffirmed the importance of establishing an independent Palestinian State along the June 4, 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, affirming that this is the only guarantee for achieving lasting peace, stability, and the desired economic prosperity.
Death toll from Israeli attacks on Gaza reaches 48,219, says health ministry
At least 48,219 Palestinian people have been killed and 111,665 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
The ministry said that 11 deaths were recorded and 10 injured people arrived in hospitals during the past 24 hours.
Gaza’s health ministry has said in the past that thousands of other dead people are most likely lost in the rubble of the territory.
Now turning to some news out of Yemen. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has said one of its staff members had died in detention in northern Yemen, where the UN has repeatedly called for the Houthi movement to free detained UN employees.
WFP did not specify when or how its employee, who it said had been detained on 23 January with six others, had died.
The UN paused all operations in Yemen’s Sa’ada region on Monday after more UN staff were detained by the Houthi authorities, deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said.
The Iran-backed Houthis have controlled most populated parts of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, since seizing power in 2014 and early 2015. Since 2021 the Houthis have detained dozens of UN staff. The group now has some 24 UN staff in detention.
Despite the ongoing ceasefire agreement, a young Palestinian man, Muhammad Nafeth Hosni Abu Taha, has been fatally shot by Israeli forces in a neighbourhood west of Rafah, in southern Gaza, Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, is reporting.
Malaysian prime minister Anwar Ibrahim has condemned Israel’s assault on Gaza, referring to the country as a coloniser embarking on a “project of colonisation”.
“This is a colonisation, a project of colonisation,” he said at a news conference earlier today with visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “How much negotiations can you have when the coloniser has not withdrawn?”
“This is also an issue of politics of dispossession. When you rob people’s land, people’s houses, people’s property… therefore there are two issues here we have to resolve. One of course immediate humanitarian assistance, but also a long term just amicable resolution to the problem,” Ibrahim said.
Malaysia – a predominately Muslim country – is a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause and has pushed for a two-state solution.
Erdogan was quoted as saying that Israel has “failed to keep its promises” regarding the ceasefire deal and told journalists that “the Israeli occupation should end once and for all”.
Israeli military’s deadly raid on West Bank city of Jenin continues
The IDF’s raid on the West Bank city of Jenin, which has killed at least 25 Palestinian people, according to officials, is on its 22nd consecutive day. The Israeli military says its aim is to rout out what it has described as militants.
Jenin’s refugee camp, one of 19 across the West Bank built in the aftermath of Israel’s creation in 1948 to house displaced Palestinians, is a centre of armed Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation.
Jenin’s assistant governor Mansour al-Saadi has said that Israeli forces have caused widespread damage to the Jenin refugee camp, and displaced about 20,000 people from inside it.
The following is from a report from the Palestinian news agency, Wafa. We have not yet been able to independently verify this information:
For the 22nd consecutive day, the occupation continues to demolish and burn citizens’ homes in the camp, amidst intensive flying of drones.
The occupation forces also destroyed the street leading to the purification station in Jenin and parts of it, while it continues to send military reinforcements accompanied by bulldozers to the city of Jenin and the surroundings of the camp.
Israeli mechanisms continue to besiege Jenin governmental hospital after bulldozing its entrance and the main street leading to it.
For the 21st consecutive day, the hospital’s departments suffer from a severe shortage of potable water, while the necessary hospital departments are operating at their minimum capacity due to the Israeli aggression.
We have some more information about Shlomo Mansour, the 86-year-old Israeli hostage whose death was announced this morning (see post at 08.22 for more details).
During the Hamas-led 7 October attack on southern Israel in 2023, Mansour was taken captive from Kibbutz Kissufim, where he lived and worked as a chicken coop manager.
The Israeli hostage forum said in a statement that Mansour, born in Baghdad, was a survivor of the Farhud pogrom – a 1941 attack on Iraq’s Jewish community – and immigrated to Israel with his family aged 13.
“This is one of the most difficult days in the history of our kibbutz,” the community of Kissufim said in a statement.
“Shlomo was much more than a community member to us – he was a father, grandfather, a true friend and the beating heart of Kissufim.”
“Our hearts are broken that we couldn’t bring him back to us alive”.
The kibbutz called on the Israeli government and world leaders “to continue acting with determination to bring back all the hostages, both the living and the dead, and not to allow painful stories like Shlomo’s to repeat themselves”.
In a statement, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he and his wife, Sara, “share in the family’s deep mourning”.
“We will not rest and will not be silent until he is returned to a burial in Israel. We will continue to act with determination and without pause until we return all of our hostages – both the living and the fallen,” he said.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has urged Hamas to continue with the planned release of hostages as he warned that everything should be done to avoid the resumption of “hostilities” in the Gaza Strip.
He wrote in a post on X:
We must avoid at all costs resumption of hostilities in Gaza that would lead to immense tragedy. I appeal to Hamas to proceed with the planned liberation of hostages. Both sides must fully abide by their commitments in the ceasefire agreement & resume serious negotiations.
Last week, Guterres, who has called for a permanent ceasefire, warned against “any form of ethnic cleansing” in Gaza as he addressed the UN committee on the exercise of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.
He said that any durable peace will require “tangible, irreversible and permanent” progress toward the two-state solution as well as the establishment of an “independent Palestinian state with Gaza as an integral part”.
The comments came after US President Donald Trump announced plans to take over the Gaza Strip, move Palestinians to neighbouring countries – such as Egypt and Jordan – and redevelop their homeland for occupation by “the world’s people”, effectively endorsing the ethnic cleansing of the people of Gaza.
Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz has extended his condolences to the family of hostage Shlomo Mansour, who was reportedly one of the 33 people due to be released in the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal.
The 86-year-old chicken coop manager was taken captive from Kibbutz Kissufim, where he lived and worked, in October 2023.
The Israeli military said in a statement that the “decision to confirm his death was based on intelligence gathered in recent months”.
In a post on X, Katz wrote:
I would like to extend my condolences and hugs to the family of the late Shlomo Mansour, one of the founders of Kibbutz Kissufim, who was murdered on October 7 by the terrorist organization Hamas and whose body is being held in Gaza.
We will continue to work in every way to return all the abductees, living and dead. This is our moral duty and our highest goal. May his memory be blessed.
אני מבקש למסור את תנחומיי ולחבק את משפחתו של שלמה מנצור ז”ל, ממקימי קיבוץ כיסופים, שנרצח ב-7 באוקטובר על ידי ארגון הטרור חמאס ושגופתו מוחזקת בעזה.
נמשיך לפעול בכל דרך להשבת כל החטופים, החיים ואלו שאינם בחיים. זוהי חובתנו המוסרית ומטרתנו העליונה.
יהי זכרו ברוך. pic.twitter.com/B1OQz3NCdU
— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) February 11, 2025
About 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023. 73 hostages, and three others taken a decade earlier, are still being held in Gaza, according to BBC News.
Hamas official: Trump must remember respecting truce is only way to bring Israeli hostages home
As we have been reporting throughout the blog, Hamas announced yesterday night they were postponing the next scheduled release of hostages on Saturday, blaming Israel for violating the ceasefire deal that came into effect on 19 January.
Hamas said the violations included “delaying the return of the displaced to the northern Gaza Strip and targeting them with shelling and gunfire”.
Donald Trump, who has claimed credit for securing the agreement, warned hours later that if all the Israeli hostages held in Gaza are not returned by Saturday at noon he would propose cancelling the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and letting “all hell break loose” (in total, 17 Israeli hostages were still due to be released in the first phase of the three-stage ceasefire, eight of whom Israel says are dead).
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri responded to his comments in an interview with 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.
Haroon Siddique
Haroon Siddique is the Guardian’s legal affairs correspondent
A former UK supreme court judge has described Israel’s assault on Gaza as “grossly disproportionate” and said there was “at least an arguable case” that it was genocidal.
Lord Sumption, who served on the UK’s highest court from 2012 to 2018, was one of the highest profile signatories of a letter last year warning that the UK government was breaching international law by arming Israel.
In September, the Labour government suspended some arms export licences to Israel but made an exception for parts for F35 jets – a contentious decision that is being challenged in the courts.
Sumption was speaking to the Guardian before the release of his new book, The Challenges of Democracy: And The Rule of Law, which does not address the situation in Gaza but warns of threats to free speech, which the former judge said included expressions of pro-Palestinian sentiments.
Explaining his decision to sign the letter, Sumption said: “ I thought – and I still think – that the conduct of Israel in Gaza is grossly disproportionate and there’s at least an arguable case that it’s genocidal. One can’t put it higher than that because genocide depends on intent.
That’s quite a difficult thing to establish but I read the provisional decision of the international court (of justice) (ICJ) and it seemed to me that they were saying that that was an arguable proposition.
You can read the full story here:
The Hamas announcement that it will delay the next planned release of Israeli hostages from Gaza has threatened a fragile truce that’s seen as having the potential to wind down 16 months of war.
As the Associated Press reports, the announcement has brought new dismay for Israelis who watched the latest Hamas handover of hostages in growing horror over the weekend as the three emaciated men came into sight.
The next handover of hostages had been scheduled for Saturday, and families say time is running out for those still alive. Israel now awaits what comes from a security Cabinet meeting Tuesday morning, moved up after the Hamas announcement.
“The hostages are in a clear and present danger. Their lives are at risk,” a doctor working with families of hostages, Hagai Levine, warned on Monday. “Delaying their release means that some of them will not survive.”
A look at displacement in Gaza – in pictures
Displaced Palestinian families have taken refuge in tents near their homes in Gaza city.
The scale.
What will happen in Trump’s meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II?
President Donald Trump will host Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House on Tuesday as he escalates pressure on the Arab nation to take in refugees from Gaza — perhaps permanently — as part of his audacious plan to remake the Middle East, the Associated Press reports.
The visit is happening at a perilous moment for the ongoing ceasefire in Gaza as Hamas, accusing Israel of violating the truce, has said it is pausing future releases of hostages and as Trump has called for Israel to resume fighting if all those remaining in captivity are not freed by this weekend.
Trump has proposed the US take control of Gaza and turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” with Palestinians in the war-torn territory pushed into neighbouring nations with no right of return.
He suggested on Monday that, if necessary, he would withhold US funding from Jordan and Egypt, longtime US allies and among the top recipients of its foreign aid, as a means of persuading them to accept additional Palestinians from Gaza.
“Yeah, maybe. Sure, why not?” Trump told reporters. “If they don’t, I would conceivably withhold aid, yes.”
Jordan is home to more than 2 million Palestinians and, along with other Arab states, has flatly rejected Trump’s plan to relocate civilians from Gaza.
Reopening summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of developments in the Middle East, and a tenuous moment in the three-week ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, US president Donald Trump has warned that “all hell is going to break out” if Hamas does not release the remaining Israeli hostages this Saturday.
Hamas said earlier that it was delaying the release of Israeli hostages indefinitely over what it said were violations of the ceasefire, prompting Israel’s defence minister to put the country’s military on alert with orders to prepare for “any scenario in Gaza”.
It’s just past 8am in Gaza and Jerusalem, and if you are just tuning into this story, here is what you need to know.
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Trump said his plan to “take over Gaza” would not include a right of return for the more than 2 million Palestinians whom he has said have “no alternative” but to leave because of the destruction left by Israel’s military campaign. Trump continued to endorse a plan for the Palestinians to be resettled in Egypt and Jordan, a plan that both countries have rejected. The remarks are the latest effective endorsement of ethnic cleansing by the US president.
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Trump also said he might withhold aid to Jordan and Egypt if those countries do not take Palestinian refugees being relocated from Gaza.
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The US president will host Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House on Tuesday as he escalates pressure on the Arab nation to take in refugees from Gaza – perhaps permanently – as part of his audacious plan to remake the Middle East. The visit is happening at a perilous moment for the ongoing ceasefire.
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In response to Hamas’ announcement delaying the release of hostages, Israel’s security cabinet has moved forward a meeting to discuss negotiations on the second phase of the ceasefire, which had been set for Tuesday evening. The army has cancelled all leave for soldiers in the Gaza division, the Kan news outlet reported, in a sign that Israeli authorities are preparing for the resumption of war.
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Mediators fear a breakdown of the three-week-old ceasefire and have postponed talks until they receive a clear indication of Washington’s intent to continue with the phased deal, according to reports. Qatar had reportedly warned Israeli officials at the weekend that even the first stage of the ceasefire deal was being put in jeopardy by provocative statements from Benjamin Netanyahu and by his government’s approach to talks on a second stage.
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Israeli police raided a leading Palestinian-owned bookshop in Jerusalem and detained two of its owners, accusing them of selling books that supported terrorism, including a children’s colouring book entitled From the Jordan to the Sea.
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Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC), is the first person to be hit with economic and travel sanctions authorised by Trump that target the court over investigations of US citizens or US allies, the White House has confirmed. The US president signed an executive order last week authorising aggressive economic sanctions against the ICC, accusing the body of “illegitimate and baseless actions” targeting the US and Israel.
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A former UK supreme court judge described Israel’s assault on Gaza as “grossly disproportionate” and said there was “at least an arguable case” that it was genocidal. Lord Sumption, who served on the UK’s highest court from 2012 to 2018, was one of the highest profile signatories of a letter last year warning that the UK government was breaching international law by arming Israel.