With Hamas saying it will release more hostages this weekend, President Donald Trump has yet to weigh in, as he did last week ahead of the planned Saturday hostage release threatening "all hell is going to break out" if all hostages weren't freed by his deadline.

This week, Hamas once again showed why reaching a ceasefire deal was so elusive for so long: the group threatened to stop releasing hostages and to return to war with Israel. To many of us who served in the Biden administration (I helped lead months of ceasefire talks), this did not come as a surprise.