Hamas accuses Israel of breaking ceasefire ahead of prisoner release

The terror group expected Israel to release 183 prisoners on Saturday in exchange for three hostages taken in the Oct. 7 attack, according to reporting by CNN. The Israel Defense Forces is reviewing the list of hostages to be released this weekend, according to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Updates on the fifth scheduled exchange came hours after Hamas accused Israel of breaking the ceasefire agreement by stopping or stalling hundreds of humanitarian aid trucks from entering Gaza, according to a Hamas statement reported by Reuters. The Israeli agency responsible for coordinating aid entering and exiting Gaza noted early Friday morning that 4,200 aid trucks had entered the region this week alone. More than 12,000 trucks have entered the region since the ceasefire began in mid-January, the group statement added.

Is Israel still planning to rebuild Gaza? Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz hinted that his country is moving forward with its plan to relocate Palestinians and rebuild Gaza in a Thursday social media post. He instructed the IDF to make a plan to aid Gaza residents in voluntarily resettling to another country, according to a statement. The voluntary exit plan for locals would include land, water, and air travel options, he added.

His comments came after days of Palestinian allies pushing back against President Donald Trump’s proposal to resettle Gaza residents. Trump posed the idea after meeting with Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday. Under his plan, American forces would clean up the unexploded ordinance and other dangerous weapons scattered across the region, then clear the devastation and make way for new development, he said. Leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates firmly rejected the idea of Palestinians leaving the Gaza Strip despite the area’s severe destruction. Palestinian land and its holy sites are not an investment project and its people are not bargaining chips, according to a Friday statement from the Palestinian Mission to the United Nations. The people of Gaza have made great sacrifices to keep the region’s independence and refuse to give an inch, the statement added.

The international cacophony reached a fever pitch on Thursday when Trump signed an executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court, or ICC. The order accused the court of illegitimately targeting Israel and America without cause, specifically by issuing an arrest warrant against Netanyahu early last year. Trump’s order threatened significant consequences for ICC leaders responsible for targeting the two countries. Nearly 80 international bodies reaffirmed support for the ICC in a joint statement slamming Trump’s sanctions, including Canada, France, and the United Kingdom.

Dig deeper: Read my report from last May about the ICC issuing arrest warrants for leaders of Hamas and Israel.