Hamas fighters prepare for a resumption of hostilities as Israel threatens Gaza if hostages are not released on Saturday.

Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas if fighting resumes as both sides prepare for a return to all-out war.

Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, pledged on Wednesday that renewed fighting in Gaza would not end without the defeat of Hamas and promised to “open the gates of hell” if the terror group does not release three hostages on Saturday as planned.

“If Hamas stops the release of the hostages, then there is no agreement and there is a war,” he added.

Hamas meanwhile has ordered its leaders to stop using mobile phones to prevent Israel from tracking and assassinating commanders.

It added it will “not accept the language of American and Israeli threats” over the crisis that has engulfed the ceasefire deal.

Hamas said on Tuesday it was postponing the release of hostages until further notice and accused Israel of systematically violating the ceasefire deal.

Responding, Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, said he had instructed troops to gather in and around the Gaza Strip in preparation for an attack, with the Israeli military announcing shortly afterwards that it had called up reservists and was deploying additional forces to Israel’s south.

The Red Cross, which is helping facilitate the fragile hostage-prisoner exchanges between Israel and Hamas, on Wednesday called on both parties to “maintain the ceasefire”.

“All of the remaining hostages need to be released. People in Gaza need respite from violence and access to life-saving humanitarian aid. This all depends on the continuation of the ceasefire agreement,” it said.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels threatened to “immediately” resume attacks on Israel if the Gaza ceasefire collapses, with the group’s leader warning that “our fingers are on the trigger”.

“We are ready to respond immediately if the Zionist regime intensifies its attacks on Gaza,” Abdulmalik al-Houthi, the group’s leader, said on Wednesday.

Mediators from Qatar and Egypt were reported to be “working intensively” to resolve the crisis.

It comes as Donald Trump infuriated Arab leaders with his plan to “take over” the Gaza Strip and permanently displace its population of more than two million Palestinians.

Planning to turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”, Mr Trump swore the move would ensure “stability in the Middle East for the first time”.

Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Arab League secretary-general, called any displacement of Palestinians “unacceptable”, saying the Arab world had “fought this idea for 100 years”.

Mr Trump called on Egypt and Jordan to take in the Palestinians who would be displaced under his plan for the takeover of the territory.

Egypt rejected the idea, with its Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the country’s president, reportedly refusing to travel to Washington for talks in the White House if “Gaza displacement was on the agenda”.

Egypt is expected to present its own “comprehensive” plan for Gaza reconstruction, which would not involve forcibly displacing Palestinians.

Jordan – which already hosts millions of Palestinians – also rejected the idea, with King Abdullah II saying it was “the unified Arab position”.

Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Militants also took 251 hostages, of whom 73 remain in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,222 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures which the UN considers reliable from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.