JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel was prepared to resume fighting against Hamas after the Palestinian group accused it of endangering a five-week-old Gaza truce by suspending prisoner release.
The first phase of the truce, which has largely halted more than 15 months of devastating war in the Gaza Strip, is due to expire in early March, and details of a planned subsequent phase have not been agreed.
With tensions again surging over the deal, Israel on Sunday announced an expansion of military operations against Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank, where violence has soared throughout the Gaza war.
Netanyahu, speaking at a military ceremony a day after Israel halted the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for six hostages freed from Gaza, vowed to achieve the war’s objectives in negotiations “or by other means.”
“We are prepared to resume intense fighting at any moment,” he said.
Since the ceasefire began on January 19, Gaza militants have released 25 living Israeli hostages in staged ceremonies, often flanked by masked gunmen and forced to speak.
After six were freed on Saturday, Israel put off the planned release of more than 600 Palestinians, citing what Netanyahu called “humiliating ceremonies” in Gaza.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has facilitated the hostage-prisoner exchanges, has previously appealed to “all parties” for the swaps to be carried out in a “dignified and private” manner.
Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim said postponing the release exposes “the entire agreement to grave danger.”
Naim called on the truce mediators, “especially the Americans,” to pressure Israel “to implement the agreement as it is and immediately release our prisoners.”
Both sides have accused each other of violations during the ceasefire but it has so far held.
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war.
The attack resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people, and Israel’s retaliation killed more than 48,000 in Gaza, according to figures from both sides.
Netanyahu on Sunday said that “we have eliminated most of Hamas’s organized forces, but let there be no doubt — we will complete the war’s objectives entirely — whether through negotiation or by other means.”
Israel’s war objectives include defeating Hamas and bringing back all hostages seized during the 2023 attack, 62 of whom remain in Gaza including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.
US President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said he was headed to the Middle East this week to “get an extension of phase one” of the truce.
“We’re hopeful that we have the proper time... to begin phase two, and finish it off and get more hostages released,” Witkoff told CNN.
Trump has floated the idea of a US takeover of war-ravaged Gaza under which its Palestinian inhabitants would move elsewhere, triggering widespread criticism.
Alongside the Gaza war — which displaced almost the entire population of 2.4 million — Israel has intensified its military operations in the West Bank.
The military said a tank division will be sent into the northern West Bank city of Jenin, the first such deployment to the territory in 20 years.
It called it part of “expanding” operations in the area, where the military began a major raid against militants just after the Gaza truce began.
The United Nations has said the military operation has led to “forced displacement” of 40,000 Palestinians from Jenin and other refugee camps.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said he has told troops “to prepare for a prolonged presence in the cleared camps for the coming year and to prevent the return of residents and the resurgence of terrorism.”
Michael Horowitz, head of intelligence for Le Beck risk management consultancy, said the deployment of tanks in the West Bank comes at a “very sensitive time for the ceasefire.”
He noted that Netanyahu, under domestic pressure over his handling of the war, could face the choice of either returning to fighting or his far-right coalition government potentially collapsing.
In the West Bank as well as in Gaza, families of Palestinian prisoners had waited with uncertainty into the night on Saturday, hoping for their release.
The six Israelis released Saturday were the last group of living hostages set to be freed under the truce’s first phase.
They included Hisham Al-Sayed, 37, and Avera Mengistu, 38, who had been held in Gaza for about a decade after they entered the territory individually.
The first transfer of dead hostages under the truce earlier this week sparked anger in Israel when the remains of captive Shiri Bibas were not initially returned, promoting Hamas to admit a possible “mix-up of bodies” and finally hand over hers.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk condemned the “parading of bodies” during a ceremony in which coffins, with pictures of the dead attached, were displayed on a slogan-bedecked stage.
Israel ready to resume Gaza war, PM warns after truce delay
https://arab.news/7njeh
Israel ready to resume Gaza war, PM warns after truce delay
- First phase of ceasefire, which largely halted 15 months of devastating war, due to expire in early March
- Both sides accused each other of violations, but cessation in violence has so far held
What the lifting of the RSF’s Kadugli siege means for Sudanese civilians
- Sudanese Armed Forces advance raises hopes for aid access as famine and displacement grip South Kordofan
- Analysts warn humanitarian relief remains fragile amid continued fighting, stalled talks, and volatile front lines
RIYADH: As Sudan’s devastating conflict approaches its third anniversary, the army announced on Tuesday that it has broken the years-long siege on Kadugli, the famine-stricken capital of South Kordofan, in what analysts say could signal a shift in the war’s momentum.
The army’s breakthrough, announced days after a similar advance in nearby Dilling, offered South Kordofan residents a reprieve from a deepening humanitarian crisis that had triggered mass displacement and widespread hunger, sparking hopes that aid could finally resume.
The oil-rich Kordofan region has become the latest front line in Sudan’s conflict, toward which the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces shifted their focus after seizing El-Fasher, one of the army’s last strongholds in Darfur, last October.
Joining forces with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, which controls stretches of territory in Kordofan and beyond, the Abu Dhabi-backed RSF tightened a blockade that had intermittently isolated Kadugli and Dilling since the war began.
The siege deepened the already dire famine conditions, later confirmed by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification in November, in the city and in El-Fasher.
Although the army’s recent operation has reopened the road between Kadugli and Dilling, aid organizations say sustained humanitarian access is still vulnerable to renewed fighting and insecurity in surrounding areas.
Mathilde Vu, the advocacy manager for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Sudan, said aid trucks have started arriving in Dilling, which is a “good sign.”
“We hope this means more supplies into Kadugli soon,” she told Arab News, but warning that famine in the city will not be reversed overnight.
“Humanitarian access needs to be guaranteed immediately and permanently,” she said, calling for global pressure to ensure the warring parties abide by international law and not attack nor block entry of aid.
On Thursday, Mohanad El-Balal, co-founder of Khartoum Aid Kitchen, posted photos on X showing trucks of aid from Sudan’s Humanitarian Aid Commission heading to Kadugli.
However, humanitarian organizations and global hunger monitors warned that without a sustainable peace, the lifting of the siege on Kadugli and Dilling will offer only a temporary relief for civilians.
The Famine Early Warning Systems Network says famine conditions will probably persist until May even though some commercial supplies have started reaching South Kordofan.
“Access is likely to be volatile as the area remains heavily contested, and joint RSF-SPLM-N forces are expected to seek to regain control,” the monitor said.
It noted that the arrival of large numbers of displaced people in rural areas around the Western Nuba Mountains near Dilling, combined with a troop buildup, insecurity, depleted harvests and restricted trade, could push conditions beyond famine thresholds by May.
Continued fighting in the area, even after the lifting of the siege, is expected to further impede aid efforts, warned humanitarian organizations.
Hours after the army entered Kadugli, the RSF launched a drone attack that hit a medical center in Kadugli, killing 15 people including seven children, according to Sudan Doctors Network, which tracks the war.
The next day, local media reported that a similar drone strike on a military hospital, attributed to the RSF-SPLM-N alliance, killed one and injured eight.
The fighting had already pushed more than 88,000 people to flee the Kordofan region since October, according to UN figures.
Aid agencies expect that figure to grow to 100,000 based on new reports of large-scale displacements in Al-Quoz, Habila, and Ar-Reif Ash Shargi in South Kordofan, as well as continued near-daily displacement out of Kadugli and Dilling.
On Thursday, the IPC issued an alert, confirming that famine has now spread to two cities in North Darfur — Um Baru and Kernoi. It projects that acute malnutrition will continue to spread in 2026, with nearly 4.2 million estimated cases compared with 3.7 million in 2025.
“Prolonged displacement, conflict, and erosion of health, water and food systems are expected to increase acute malnutrition and food insecurity,” the IPC said.
Although supply lines and access to the people of Kadugli and Dilling are expected to improve, it said the “conflict continues to drive displacement, looting, and severe disruptions to livelihoods, trade, access to services, and mutual and humanitarian aid.”
Regular shelling and drone strikes on civilian sites and infrastructure have caused conditions to deteriorate in both towns, the monitor added.
Against this backdrop, the US and UN co-hosted a fundraising event in Washington on Wednesday to appeal for aid for Sudan, launching a new Sudan Humanitarian Fund with $700 million.
However, this figure is a long way from meeting the $2.9 billion requested by the UN’s 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan, which was only 5.5 percent funded as of Feb. 3. The 2025 plan received just 38.7 percent of what was needed.
While the military breakthrough in Kordofan is a significant development, observers cautioned that peace remains a distant prospect as mediation efforts stall and the warring parties continue to vie for control over different parts of the country.
The UN estimates more than 40,000 people have been killed since the war began and 14 million displaced, triggering the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Both sides are accused of war crimes. In Darfur, the RSF has even been accused of genocide — and Abu Dhabi has been accused of backing the RSF.
Last year, a detailed report produced by Amnesty International provides evidence for the presence of UAE armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles in Sudan being used by the RSF in particular. Amnesty also accuses the RSF of war crimes.
The army now controls the capital Khartoum along with the northern, central and eastern regions, and the strategic Red Sea city Port Sudan. The army’s next objective is Darfur — the last region under RSF control.
Speaking to Reuters on Tuesday, Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said that advances on the battlefield had not alleviated civilian suffering.
“Every day we see new overloaded trucks with women and children fleeing fighting and starvation in South Kordofan to South Sudan, which is also in a deep economic crisis,” Egeland posted on X. “It is the worst crisis in the largest humanitarian catastrophe in the world.”
Last month, the US and Saudi Arabia presented the Sudanese Armed Forces with the latest truce proposal. Speaking to reporters after the breakthrough on Tuesday, Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan said there would be no truce as long as the RSF occupies cities.
“We respond to all calls for peace and we respond to any call to end the war, but ending the war will not be at the expense of Sudanese blood,” he said. “There must be no truce that strengthens the enemy, no ceasefire should allow this militia to regain its strength.”
Analysts believe the army’s latest breakthroughs in Kadugli and Dilling are a sign that momentum is beginning to shift against the RSF.
Mariam Wahba, research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote on Thursday that the army’s victory has “weakened the RSF’s control over strategic population centers in South Kordofan by disrupting the rebel group’s supply lines.”
Another political analyst told Arab News that Kadugli’s liberation was “a strategic surprise by all measures,” overturning the balance of power and redrawing the map of control in western Sudan.
During Wednesday’s fundraiser in Washington, Massad Boulos, US senior adviser for Arab and African affairs, confirmed that the US has put forward a “comprehensive proposal” for a humanitarian truce that could be agreed on in the next few weeks.
He said that the plan had already gained the support of members of the Quad — comprising the US, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE — which has been coordinating diplomatic efforts to end the war in Sudan.
However, for peace to succeed, Wahba said Washington must go beyond its current focus on humanitarian aid and ceasefire diplomacy by adopting a dual strategy of pressure and alignment.
She said the US should act to disrupt the RSF’s financial networks and arms supply chains to weaken its capacity to wage war, while applying pressure on the army, through sanctions or diplomatic isolation, to exclude hardline Islamists from its ranks.
Washington, she said, should leverage its ties in aligning efforts with regional powers — Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, and the UAE — around shared objectives such as preventing Sudan from becoming a safe haven for militias and transnational criminal networks.
“Coordinated pressure would provide Washington with greater leverage to shape ceasefire terms, marginalize spoilers, and influence Sudan’s postwar trajectory without direct US military involvement,” she said.
On Tuesday, Burhan vowed that he would liberate all Sudanese territory.
“I want to assure our people everywhere — in Al-Geneina, in Al-Tina, and in all other places — the army will reach them. The armed forces will reach them.”
To the people of Al-Fasher he said: “We are coming.”
