Benjamin Netanyahu: We welcome Donald Trump's ultimatum

President Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement tonight (Tuesday) saying that the cabinet unanimously welcomes President Donald Trump's ultimatum that if the hostages are not freed by Saturday, then the ceasefire is over and the war will return.

In his statement, Netanyahu said that:

"I have just finished an in-depth, four-hour Security Cabinet meeting. We all expressed outrage over the shocking state of our three hostages who were released last Saturday.

We all welcomed President Trump's demand to release our hostages by Saturday noon as well, and we all welcomed the President's revolutionary vision for the future of Gaza.

In light of Hamas's announcement regarding its decision to violate the agreement and not release our hostages, last night I instructed the IDF to amass forces inside – and surrounding – the Gaza Strip. This action is being carried out at this hour and will be completed very soon.

The unanimous decision that I passed in the Cabinet is as follows:

If Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon, the ceasefire will end, and the IDF will resume intense fighting until the final defeat of Hamas."

Trump's plan to relocate displaced Gazans from the Gaza Strip to other countries has received at least qualified support from parties in both the coalition and the opposition.

Yisrael Beytenu party leader Avigdor Liberman, for instance, said that it should be easily possible to relocated "at least half" of the population of the Gaza Strip to the northern Sinai, as it has the same climate and geography and is effectively part of the same region.

Hawkish Religious Zionism party leader and coalition member Bezalel Smotrich has shown enthusiastic support for the idea. Immediately after hearing it, Smotrich said that he supports it and wants to work with Prime Minister Netanyahu to make the idea into a "reality."