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Israel-Hamas tension expected to take a major turn after major developments followed the warning by US President Donald Trump to Hamas on February 15. He warned of taking ‘hard stance’ on Gaza, if Hamas would fail to release hostages until 12:00 on Saturday.
Following the Trump’s warning, Hamas on Saturday released 3 Israeli hostages in exchange of 369 Palestinians hostages released by Israel.
Day after the exchange of hostages, Israel has received a shipment of heavy MK-84 bombs from the United States. It came soon after the U.S. President Donald Trump lifted a block imposed on the export of the munitions by Joe Biden administration, the defence ministry said on Sunday.
The MK-84 is an unguided 2,000-pound bomb, which can rip through thick concrete and metal, creating a wide blast radius. The Biden administration declined to clear them for export to Israel out of concern about the impact on densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip.
This major action by the Trump administration rendered the stakeholders to wonder if this step is just a deterrence against Hamas to negotiate the terms and conditions or something more than that.
Earlier, Hamas released Israeli hostages Iair Horn, Sagui Dekel Chen and Sasha Troufanov in Gaza and Israel freed over 360 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in exchange, after mediators helped avert a collapse of the fragile ceasefire.
The three Israelis were led onto a stage with Palestinian Hamas militants armed with automatic rifles standing on each side of them at the site in Khan Younis, live footage showed, before they were taken back into Israel by Israeli forces.