Pressure mounts over extending Gaza ceasefire

New details and growing shock over emaciated hostages have renewed pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to extend a fragile Gaza ceasefire beyond the first phase ending three weeks from now.

Talks on the second phase, meant to see more hostages released and a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, were due to start on February 3.

But Israel and Hamas appear to have made little progress, even as Israeli forces withdrew on Sunday from a Gaza corridor in the latest commitment to the truce.

The Israeli prime minister, who returned after a US visit to meet with President Donald Trump, is expected to convene security cabinet ministers on Tuesday.

Mr Trump himself suggested he was losing patience with the deal after seeing the emaciated hostages released this week.

“I watched the hostages come back today and they looked like Holocaust survivors. They were in horrible condition. They were emaciated. It looked like many years ago, the Holocaust survivors, and I don’t know how much longer we can take that,” he told reporters onboard Air Force One as he travelled to the Super Bowl on Sunday.

“I know we have a deal where we’re supposed to get – they dribble in and keep dribbling in – but they are in really bad shape,” Mr Trump said.

Families of remaining hostages said time is running out as some survivors described being barefoot and in chains.

“We cannot let the hostages remain there. There is no other way. I am appealing to the cabinet,” said Ella Ben Ami, daughter of a hostage released on Saturday, adding she now understands the toll of captivity is much worse than imagined.

The father of a remaining hostage, Kobi Ohel, told Israel’s Channel 13 that the newly released men said his son, Alon, and others “live off half a pita to a full pita a day. These are not human conditions”.

Mr Ohel’s mother, Idit, sobbed as she told Channel 12 her son has been chained for more than a year.

Michael Levy said his brother, the newly released Or Levy, had been barefoot and hungry for 16 months.

“The decision-makers knew exactly what his condition was and what everyone else’s condition was, and they did not do enough to bring him back with the urgency that was needed,” he said.

The ceasefire that began on January 19 has held, raising hopes that the 16-month war that led to seismic shifts in the Middle East may be heading towards an end.

The latest step was Israeli forces’ withdrawal from the four-mile Netzarim corridor separating northern and southern Gaza, which was used as a military zone.

No troops were seen in the vicinity on Sunday.

As the ceasefire began last month, Israel began allowing hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to cross Netzarim and return to the north.

But the deal remains fragile.

On Sunday, civil defence first responders in Gaza said three people were killed by Israeli fire east of Gaza City.

Israel’s military noted “several hits” after warning shots were fired and again warned Palestinians from approaching its forces.

A convoy of cars piled with belongings headed north through a road that crosses Netzarim.

Under the deal, Israel should allow cars to cross uninspected.

Hamas spokesperson Abdel Latif Al-Qanoua said the troops’ withdrawal showed the militant group had “forced the enemy to submit to our demands” and that it thwarted “Netanyahu’s illusion of achieving total victory”.

Israel has said it will not agree to a complete withdrawal from Gaza until Hamas’s military and political capabilities are eliminated.

Hamas says it will not hand over the last hostages until Israel removes all troops from the territory.

During the ceasefire’s 42-day first phase, Hamas is gradually releasing 33 Israeli hostages captured during its October 7 2023 attack that sparked the war in exchange for the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and a flood of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Israel has said Hamas confirmed that eight of the 33 are dead.

Families of hostages gathered in Tel Aviv to urge Mr Netanyahu to extend the ceasefire, but he is under pressure from far-right political allies to resume the war.

Complicating things further is Mr Trump’s proposal to relocate the population of Gaza and take ownership of the territory.

“I’m committed to buying and owning Gaza. As far as us rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it. Other people may do it through our auspices. But we’re committed to owning it, taking it, and making sure that Hamas doesn’t move back. There’s nothing to move back into. The place is a demolition site. The remainder will be demolished,” he said.

Mr Trump said Arab nations would agree to take in Palestinians after speaking with him and insisted Palestinians would leave Gaza if they had a choice.

“They don’t want to return to Gaza. If we could give them a home in a safer area — the only reason they’re talking about returning to Gaza is they don’t have an alternative. When they have an alternative, they don’t want to return to Gaza.”

Israel has expressed openness to the idea while Hamas, the Palestinians and much of the world have rejected it.

Egypt said it will host an emergency Arab summit on February 27 to discuss the “new and dangerous developments”.

Mr Trump’s proposal has moral, legal and practical obstacles.

It may have been proposed as a negotiation tactic to pressure Hamas or make an opening gambit in discussions aimed at securing a normalisation deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia on Sunday condemned Mr Netanyahu’s recent comment that Palestinians could create their state there.

It said his remarks aim to divert attention from crimes committed by “the Israeli occupation against our Palestinian brothers in Gaza, including the ethnic cleansing they are being subjected to”.

Qatar called Mr Netanyahu’s comment “provocative” and a blatant violation of international law.

Much of the territory has been obliterated.

Violence has surged in the West Bank during the war and intensified in recent days with an Israeli military operation in the territory’s north.

The shooting of the pregnant woman, Sundus Shalabi, happened in the Nur Shams urban refugee camp, a focal point of Israeli operations against Palestinian militants.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said another woman, Rahaf al-Ashqar, 21, was also killed.

Israel’s military said its police had opened an investigation.

Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz announced on Sunday the expansion of the operation, which started in Jenin several weeks ago.

He said it was meant to prevent Iran – allied with Hamas – from establishing a foothold in the West Bank.