By Nidal al-Mughrabi and James Mackenzie
CAIRO/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Hamas accused Israel of multiple breaches of their ceasefire agreement on Friday, a day before the scheduled exchange of three more Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners in the latest stage in a fragile deal aimed at ending the war in Gaza.
As well as delaying the entry of hundreds of trucks carrying food and other humanitarian supplies, Hamas said Israel had only allowed in a fraction of the tents and mobile homes needed to provide shelter to people returning to their bombed-out homes.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he wanted to move the population of Gaza to a third country like Egypt or Jordan and place the coastal enclave under U.S. control to be developed into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
Almost three weeks after the start of the ceasefire, “the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate dangerously,” Hamas said in a statement.
The statement, issued as the militant group was scheduled to announce the identities of the three hostages to be released on Saturday, underlined the fragility of the deal reached last month with Egyptian and Qatari mediators and backed by the United States.
The announcement of the names was delayed on Friday following the Hamas accusations, but it was not immediately clear whether the hold-up would delay the exchange scheduled for Saturday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed Trump’s vision for Gaza as a “remarkable” plan, but it was immediately rejected by Arab countries, Palestinian groups including Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, and many Gazans, who said they would rebuild their homes and restaurants themselves.
However Israeli leaders have repeated the line that Gazans who wished should be able to leave and Defence Minister Israel Katz ordered the army on Thursday to prepare a plan to allow for the departure of Gaza residents who wanted to leave.
So far, 13 Israeli hostages of the 33 children, women and older men set to be released in the first, 42-day phase of the agreement have come home and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees have been released in exchange. Five Thai hostages have also been returned.
Work on the second stage of the multi-phase agreement, aimed at securing the release of around 60 male hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, has begun and an Israeli negotiating team was expected to fly on Saturday to Doha, Israeli media reported on Friday.
However the accusations levelled by Hamas against Israel showed how little trust there was between the two sides following more than 15 months of the bloodiest episode in the decades-long conflict.
The Israeli military said on Friday that commanders were conducting situational assessments ahead of the next phase of the agreement currently being discussed, with troops deployed at various points around the Gaza Strip.
‘CLEAR MANIPULATION’
Hamas said only 8,500 trucks out of the 12,000 that should have arrived so far had entered the Gaza Strip, most containing food and secondary goods including chips and chocolate instead of other urgent needs.
“This demonstrates clear manipulation of relief and shelter priorities,” it said.
In addition, only 10% of the 200,000 tents and 60,000 caravans needed to provide shelter had arrived, it said, leaving hundreds of thousands in harsh winter weather.
Finally, heavy machinery needed to clear millions of tonnes of rubble and recover the thousands of bodies thought to be buried had not arrived.
Israel has rejected accusations that it is dragging its feet on enabling the entry to aid supplies as “a completely unfounded claim” and says it has allowed in thousands of trucks, including tents and shelters.
But hundreds of thousands of people are caught in tents and other makeshift shelters worn out by months of use as the fighting raged last year.
So far, despite accusations of ceasefire breaches levelled by both sides, the truce has held, leaving the way still open to an end to the war and rebuilding Gaza, which now lies in ruins.
Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 as hostages in the heaviest loss of life in a single day since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.
In response, Israel opened a campaign that has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities and devastated the enclave.
(Reporting by James Mackenzie; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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