Israel has assessed that “a minimum of one or two” hostages held in Gaza are in life-threatening situation, in response to a Hebrew media report on Saturday, a day after US President Donald Trump recommended that fewer than 20 hostages stay alive, bucking Israel’s official figures and sparking despair from the captives’ households.
In line with Israel’s Channel 12 tv community, Israeli officers worry that a number of of the residing hostages are in severe hazard of demise and in dire want of medical consideration.
“Releasing the hostages is an pressing want,” an unnamed senior official informed Channel 12.”
Nonetheless, the report stated the officers have been uncertain what led Trump to conclude that “a few them should not round any longer” during a press conference on Friday.
Within the wake of Trump’s remarks, Israel’s hostage level man Gal Hirsch informed the households that “In line with the data we have now, there isn’t a change within the variety of residing hostages.”
“Twenty of the hostages are alive, two [others] are in grave hazard for his or her lives, 28 are now not alive and have been declared deceased,” Hirsch wrote to the households.
Not glad, the households then demanded that Israel current them with all data relating to their family members’ circumstances.
Demonstrators name for a take care of the Hamas terror group to free the hostages it’s holding within the Gaza Strip in trade for an finish to the battle there, exterior the Kirya navy base in Tel Aviv, on August 23, 2025. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)
Israel has lengthy said that terror teams within the Gaza Strip are holding 50 hostages, together with 49 of the 251 kidnapped by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They embrace the our bodies of a minimum of 28 confirmed lifeless by the IDF. Twenty are believed to be alive, and there are grave considerations for the well-being of two others, Israeli officers have stated. Hamas can also be holding the physique of an IDF soldier killed in Gaza in 2014.
The heightened concern for the hostages got here as Israel prepares to launch a large-scale operation to beat Gaza Metropolis and amid a flurry of worldwide efforts to deliver the perimeters again to the negotiation desk to forestall the operation.
In line with a Channel 13 report, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu determined Saturday to ship a negotiating delegation to take part in talks with mediators to succeed in a ceasefire in Gaza, nearly every week after Hamas stated they agreed to a proposal for a partial deal that Israel had agreed to prior.
The outlet reported that Netanyahu’s determination got here after he was informed in a gathering that the hostages might be executed by their captors or killed by IDF munitions if the military presses on with its deliberate takeover of Gaza Metropolis.
Regardless of Netanyahu reportedly acquiescing to ship a delegation to the upcoming talks, Channel 13 stated that there was at present no agreed-upon date or location for the talks.
In the meantime, Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt have grown more and more annoyed with Netanyahu over the “zig-zag” that he has plotted over latest months relating to his place on a possible hostage launch and ceasfire deal, Channel 12 reported on Saturday.
Protesters maintain indicators calling to finish the battle in Gaza and free the hostages, exterior the Protection Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv, on August 23, 2025. (Picture by Jack Guez/AFP)
The 2 mediating nations have been capable of efficiently persuade Hamas to stroll again from nearly all of its calls for and conform to a framework that it had rejected up to now, and which Israel had beforehand agreed to, solely to find that they’d now be compelled to attempt to persuade Israel to restart talks on the phased settlement.
The deal that Hamas agreed to earlier this week would enable for a 60-day ceasefire within the Gaza Strip and the discharge of 10 residing hostages. In the course of the truce, extra talks can be held on releasing the remaining hostages and completely ending the battle.
Though Israel agreed to this framework months in the past, Netanyahu has shifted away in latest weeks from supporting this feature and as a substitute now insists on a complete deal moderately than a partial, phased settlement.
Netanyahu’s imaginative and prescient for a complete deal to finish the battle consists of the disarmament of Hamas and the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, in addition to the switch of governance to a physique that isn’t Hamas or the Palestinian Authority.
His obvious U-turn relating to a partial deal has precipitated vital displeasure with the mediators, and with Egypt specifically. A senior official in Cairo was quoted by Channel 12 as saying that “Israel’s circumstances are unworkable and hurt the probabilities of reaching a ceasefire.”
Trump rising impatient with Gaza battle plans
One other Channel 12 report aired Saturday stated that Netanyahu and his prime adviser, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, assessed throughout a latest assembly that Israel has Trump’s full assist for its navy offensive in Gaza Metropolis, however just for a restricted interval.
The community quoted the 2 as saying that Trump desires a fast and decisive operation, and doesn’t need the battle towards Hamas to tug on greater than crucial.
Throughout the identical assembly, IDF Chief of Workers Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir was stated to have clashed with far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, who assailed him for saying the navy wasn’t positive how lengthy it could take to evacuate Gaza Metropolis’s civilian inhabitants.
IDF Chief of Workers Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir is seen within the Gaza Strip, August 17, 2025. (Israel Protection Forces)
“We ordered you [to carry out] a fast operation. In my view, you may besiege them. Whoever doesn’t evacuate, don’t allow them to. No water, no electrical energy, they will die of starvation or give up. That is what we wish and also you’re succesful [of doing it],” the community quoted Smotrich as telling Zamir.
Ben Gvir then requested the IDF chief whether or not he was “petrified of the navy advocate common’ — the IDF’s prime legal professional — to which Zamir identified that the navy is “working in different areas, in Khan Younis and Rafah.”
“This isn’t what the political management ordered. You don’t need to defeat [Hamas],” Smotrich declared of Zamir, who was stated to have retorted: “You don’t perceive something. You don’t know what a brigade or battalion is. This takes time.”
The deliberate marketing campaign to seize Gaza Metropolis has sparked a significant worldwide outcry, with governments and humanitarian teams warning of doubtless disastrous penalties for Gaza’s civilians, noting widespread malnutrition that has not too long ago worsened considerably within the Palestinian enclave all through the 22-month battle.
It has additionally sparked worry from the households of the hostages, who worry that it’ll function the ultimate nail within the coffin for his or her family members, as Hamas has vowed to execute captives if IDF troops method their positions.
