Location at a glance: Gaza caving rest on the bracket – Israel threatens the Hamas

The ceasefire between Israel and the Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip is on the brink. “If Hamas does not soon expose the hostages, the gazas goals will be closed and the gates opened to hell,” said Israel’s Minister of Defense Israel Katz, according to his office. Katz said that they will only be negotiated for a few days and threatened to resume fighting.

According to Israeli information, Hamas still holds 24 hostages and 35 corpses of deported. In return, Israel calls for the continuation of the ceasefire for the return of the kidnapped, as a proposal by the US specialist Steve Witkoff provides. The Hamas, on the other hand, insists on the immediate admission of negotiations on the second phase of the agreement, which provides for an end to the war and the withdrawal of Israel troops. The Israeli hostages could only be released in this way.

Does the war break out again?

After Israel had already stopped access for all aid deliveries in the large -scale Gaza strip, further measures could follow if there is no agreement on the release of further hostages in the coming days, the “Jerusalem Post” wrote. Israel is preparing to cut off the sealed coastal strip from the water and power supply. All of these measures would above all take the needy Palestinian civilian population in the coastal area.

If there is no agreement between Israel and Hamas, officials estimated that Israel would resume the fights in the Gaza Strip in about a week and a half, the newspaper continued. In the event of a resumption of the war, the Hamas fighters will be confronted with “forces and methods that they have never met,” Minister of Defense Katz was quoted. A delivery of heavy bombs released by the new US government had recently arrived in Israel.

According to Israeli media, the talks are stalling. Although Hamas rejected Witkoff’s proposal, Israel had fulfilled the request and allowed a few more days of negotiations, said Katz. According to unconfirmed information from “Jerusalem Post”, Hamas apparently “neither accepted nor rejected” the Witkoff proposal. According to Israeli information, this provides for the continuation of the ceasefire until mid -April in return for the transfer of all remaining hostages.

Israeli civil servants suspected that Hamas could be willing without the acceptance of the Witkoff proposal to soon let other hostages go in an exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners and the resumption of aid deliveries to Gaza, the newspaper continued. But that also depends on other questions, it said without providing details. The Israeli government had to decide what is being negotiated with Hamas and what the terrorist organization would receive in return for the release of the hostages, it said, citing an unspecified source.

Summit for reconstruction of the Gaza Strip in Cairo

Arab state and government heads come together in the Egyptian capital Cairo for a summit to advise on plans on the possible reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. In doing so, the Egyptian government wants to counter the controversial plans of US President Donald Trump to “move” the approximately two million Palestinians living in Gaza to Egypt and Jordan. Trump’s statements had triggered great outrage in the Arab world and beyond. The United Nations warned of “ethnic cleansing”. EU Council President António Costa is also expected at the summit in Cairo.

The UN estimate the costs of reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, which is located in ruins as a result of the war, to $ 53 billion. In discussions about the future of the coastal area, many questions are unclear, for example who should control and secure the Gaza Strip after the end of the war. The war was triggered by the unprecedented massacre, which Hamas terrorists and other extremist Palestinian organizations had committed on October 7, 2023 in Israel near the border to the Gaza Strip.

On the Israeli side, more than 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others were deported to the Gaza strips as hostages. Since the beginning of the war, more than 48,300 people in Gaza have been killed in Gaza. The number of not verifiable number does not distinguish between fighters and civilians, but is classified as quite credible by the UN.