Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Tuesday that Israel was ready to proceed to the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal, as long as Hamas was ready to release more of the 59 hostages it is still holding.

Speaking to international press in Jerusalem, the foreign minister also said the Hamas terror group’s main source of funding is now humanitarian aid flowing into the Strip, defending Israel’s decision to halt the delivery of goods into the enclave.

“We are ready to continue to phase two, we will come with our positions which are probably different from the positions of Hamas,” Sa’ar said. “But in order to extend the time of the framework, we need an agreement to release more hostages. ‘No free meals’ is a very known principle.”

The three-stage ceasefire agreement, reached last month, halted some 15 months of fighting triggered by the group’s October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, when Hamas-led terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.

The US, Egyptian and Qatari-mediated deal requires Hamas to release all its hostages, Israel to release thousands of Palestinian security prisoners — including hundreds serving life sentences — and a halt to fighting in the Strip, followed by negotiations for a “sustainable calm” and IDF withdrawal from the enclave.

Dozens of hostages — alive and dead — were released in batches during the first phase, but the initial 42-day stage........

© The Times of Israel