CAIRO (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday his government was considering “alternative options” to ceasefire talks with Hamas after Israel and the U.S. recalled their negotiating teams, throwing the future of the negotiations into further uncertainty.

Netanyahu’s statement came as a Hamas official said negotiations were expected to resume next week and portrayed the recall of the Israeli and American delegations as a pressure tactic.

The teams left Qatar on Thursday as President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said Hamas’ latest response to proposals for a deal showed a “lack of desire” to reach a truce. Witkoff said the U.S. will look at “alternative options,” without elaborating.

In a statement released by his office, Netanyahu echoed Witkoff, saying, “Hamas is the obstacle to a hostage release deal.”

“Together with our U.S. allies, we are now considering alternative options to bring our hostages home, end Hamas’s terror rule, and secure lasting peace for Israel and our region,” he said. He did not elaborate. Israel’s government didn’t immediately respond to whether negotiations would resume next week.

A breakthrough on a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas has eluded the Trump administration as humanitarian conditions worsen in Gaza. Israel has come under mounting pressure as hunger among Gaza’s more than 2 million people has worsened and deaths related to malnutrition have accelerated.

In recent days more then two dozen Western-aligned countries and more than 100 charity and human rights groups have called for an end to the war, harshly criticizing Israel’s blockade and a new aid delivery model it has rolled out. The charities and rights groups said even their own staff were struggling to get enough food.

On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would recognize Palestine as a state, saying, “The urgent thing today is that the war in Gaza stops and the civilian population is saved.″

Hamas official Bassem Naim said Friday that he was told the Israeli delegation returned home for consultations and would return early next week to resume ceasefire negotiations.

Hamas said that Witkoff’s remarks were meant to pressure the group for Netanyahu’s benefit during the next round of talks and that in recent days negotiations had made progress. Naim said several gaps had been nearly solved, such as the agenda of the ceasefire, guarantees to continue negotiating to reach a permanent agreement and how humanitarian aid would be delivered.

The sides have held weeks of talks in Qatar, reporting small signs of progress but no major breakthroughs. Officials have said a main sticking point is the redeployment of Israeli troops after any ceasefire takes place.

The deal under discussion is expected to include an initial 60-day ceasefire in which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and the remains of 18 others in phases in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Aid supplies would be ramped up, and the two sides would hold negotiations on a lasting ceasefire.

The talks have been bogged down over competing demands for ending the war. Hamas says it will only release all hostages in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal and end to the war. Israel says it will not agree to end the conflict until Hamas gives up power and disarms. The militant group says it is prepared to leave power but not surrender its weapons.

Hamas is believed to be holding the hostages in different locations, including tunnels, and says it has ordered its guards to kill them if Israeli forces approach.

Some 50 hostages remain in Gaza but fewer than half are believed to be alive. Their families say the start-stop talks are excruciating.

“I thought that maybe something will come from the time that the negotiation, Israeli team were in Doha,” said Yehuda Cohen, whose son Nimrod is being held hostage. “And when I heard that they’re coming back, I ask myself: When will this nightmare end?”

Meanwhile Israeli strikes continued across Gaza.

At least 22 people were killed since Thursday night, according to hospital records at Nasser Hospital where the bodies arrived. Some were killed in strikes, others and others were killed while seeking aid, said the hospital.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump appeared on Friday to abandon Gaza ceasefire negotiations with Hamas, both claiming it had become clear that the Palestinian militants did not want a deal.

Netanyahu said Israel was now considering “alternative” options to achieve its goals of bringing its hostages home from Gaza and ending the rule of Hamas in the territory. Trump said he believed Hamas leaders would now be “hunted down”.

The remarks appeared to leave little to no room, at least in the short term, to resume negotiations to pause the fighting, at a time when international concern is mounting over worsening hunger in war-shattered Gaza.

French President Emmanuel Macron, responding to the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, announced overnight that Paris would become the first major Western power to recognise an independent Palestinian state. Britain and Germany said they were not yet ready to do so.

Israel and the United States withdrew their delegations on Thursday from the ceasefire talks in Qatar, hours after Hamas submitted its response to a truce proposal.

Sources initially said on Thursday that the Israeli withdrawal was only for consultations and did not necessarily mean the talks had reached a crisis. But Netanyahu’s remarks suggested Israel’s position had hardened overnight.

U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One, as he departs for Scotland, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., July 25, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein (Reuters)

U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said overnight that Hamas was to blame for the impasse, and Netanyahu said Witkoff had got it right.

Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said on Facebook that the talks had been constructive, and criticised Witkoff’s remarks as aimed at exerting pressure on Israel’s behalf.

“What we have presented – with full awareness and understanding of the complexity of the situation – we believe could lead to a deal if the enemy had the will to reach one,” he said.

The proposed ceasefire would suspend fighting for 60 days, allow more aid into Gaza, and free some of the 50 remaining hostages held by militants in return for Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel.

It has been held up by disagreement over how far Israel should withdraw its troops and the future beyond the 60 days if no permanent agreement is reached.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on X: “The humiliating negotiation ceremony with terrorists is over. Mr Prime Minister, now is the time for victory!”

Yazan Abu Ful, a two-year-old malnourished child, sits at his family home in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City on Wednesday, July 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi) (AP)

International aid organisations say mass hunger has now arrived among Gaza’s 2.2 million people, with stocks running out after Israel cut off all supplies to the territory in March, then reopened it in May but with new restrictions.

The Israeli military said on Friday it had agreed to let countries airdrop aid into Gaza. Hamas dismissed this as a stunt.

“The Gaza Strip does not need flying aerobatics, it needs an open humanitarian corridor and a steady daily flow of aid trucks to save what remains of the lives of besieged, starving civilians,”, Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, told Reuters.

Gaza medical authorities said nine more Palestinians had died over the past 24 hours from malnutrition or starvation. Dozens have died in the past few weeks as hunger worsens.

Israel says it has let enough food into Gaza and accuses the United Nations of failing to distribute it, in what the Israeli foreign ministry called on Friday “a deliberate ploy to defame Israel”. The United Nations says it is operating as effectively as possible under Israeli restrictions.

United Nations agencies said on Friday that supplies were running out in Gaza of specialised therapeutic food to save the lives of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

The ceasefire talks have been accompanied by continuing Israeli offensives on the ground. Palestinian health officials said Israeli airstrikes and gunfire had killed at least 21 people across the enclave on Friday, including five killed in a strike on a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City.

In Gaza City, residents carried the body of journalist Adam Abu Harbid through the streets wrapped in a white shroud, his blue flak jacket marked PRESS draped across his body. He was killed overnight in a strike on tents housing displaced people.

Mahmoud Awadia, another journalist attending the funeral, said the Israelis were deliberately trying to kill reporters.

“We will stay, we will continue this message of exposing the crimes of the Israeli occupation and its systematic targeting of our journalist colleagues,” he said. Israel denies intentionally targeting journalists.

Israel launched its assault on Gaza after Hamas-led fighters stormed Israeli towns near the border, killing some 1,200 people and capturing 251 hostages on October 7, 2023. Since then, Israeli forces have killed nearly 60,000 people in Gaza, health officials there say, and reduced much of the enclave to ruins.

Israel and the United States criticised Macron’s decision to recognise Palestinian independence. Netanyahu called it a “reward for terrorism”.

Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of an overnight Israeli strike on a tent sheltering displaced people, in Gaza City, July 24, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas gazawrap (Reuters)

Western countries have been committed for decades to an eventual independent Palestinian state but have long said it should arise out of a negotiated peace process.

Europe’s two other big powers, Britain and Germany, made clear there were no plans to act on Palestinian statehood right away. Germany has a long history of supporting Israel arising from its guilt in the Nazi Holocaust, while Britain has tried to avoid contradicting U.S. policy in the belief it best exerts influence as Washington’s close ally.

“Israel’s security is of paramount importance to the German government,” a German government spokesperson said. “The German government therefore has no plans to recognise a Palestinian state in the short term.”

Peter Kyle, a minister in Starmer’s cabinet, told Sky News: “We want Palestinian statehood, we desire it… But right now, today, we’ve got to focus on what will ease the suffering, and it is extreme, unwarranted suffering in Gaza that has to be the priority for us today.

Ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel are expected to resume next week, a Hamas official has said, as Israeli strikes continue across Gaza and experts warn Palestinians are on the brink of famine.

Hamas official Bassem Naim said on Friday that he was told an Israeli delegation would depart for consultations early next week.

His comments come a day after the United States recalled its negotiating team from Qatar and after President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said Hamas’ latest response to the negotiations showed a “lack of desire” to reach a truce.

Witkoff said the US will “now consider alternative options to bring the hostages home and try to create a more stable environment for the people of Gaza.” He did not elaborate on what those options might be.

Hamas said that Witkoff’s remarks were meant to pressure the group for Netanyahu’s benefit during the next round of talks and that in recent days negotiations had made progress.

Naim said several gaps had been nearly solved, such as the agenda of the ceasefire, guarantees to continue negotiating to reach a permanent agreement, and how humanitarian aid would be delivered.

Earlier on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office also recalled his negotiating team in light of Hamas’ response.

Catastrophe

A breakthrough on a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas has eluded the Trump administration as humanitarian conditions worsen in Gaza.

Israel has come under mounting pressure for the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza and reports of people dying from causes related to malnutrition.

In recent days, more than two dozen Western-aligned countries and more than 100 charity and human rights groups have called for an end to the war, harshly criticising Israel’s blockade and a new aid delivery model it has rolled out.

The charities and rights groups said even their own staff were struggling to get enough food.

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‘Sticking point’

Israel’s government didn’t immediately respond to whether negotiations would resume next week.

The sides have held weeks of talks in Qatar, reporting small signs of progress but no major breakthroughs.

Officials have said a main sticking point is the redeployment of Israeli troops after any ceasefire takes place.

The deal under discussion is expected to include an initial 60-day ceasefire in which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and the remains of 18 others in phases in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Aid supplies would be ramped up, and the two sides would hold negotiations on a lasting ceasefire.

The talks have been bogged down over competing demands for ending the war.

Hamas says it will only release all hostages in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal and an end to the war.