US President Donald Trump said in a speech on Saturday evening about Gaza and Ukraine that the United States will not stop working until all detainees in Gaza are released, and he expected an agreement with Kiev on rare minerals and an end to the Russian-Ukrainian war to be imminent.

Trump told a gathering of conservatives in National Harbor, Maryland, outside Washington, that he did not like to talk about the Gaza issue because there were negotiations, but he stressed that America would not stop working until all the prisoners returned home.

For his part, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday that Hamas would be "destroyed" if it did not release all remaining prisoners in Gaza, and he also condemned the killing of three members of an Israeli family who were being held in the Strip.

“Hamas’ treatment of captives, including their brutal murder of the Bibas family, further demonstrates their barbarity and is yet another reason why we say these terrorists must release all hostages immediately or they will be destroyed,” Rubio claimed via XN.

On Saturday evening, Trump's US envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, met with Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer, whom Netanyahu had appointed to head the Israeli negotiating team, instead of Mossad chief Barnea and Shin Bet chief Bar, to discuss continuing negotiations on the second phase of the prisoner exchange deal. This was their second meeting in the past two days.

Neither President Trump, Secretary of State Rubio nor his Middle East envoy have commented on Israel’s reneging on its commitment to release 602 Palestinian prisoners who had boarded buses to be taken out of captivity and were then returned to captivity, despite this blatant violation of the agreement that the United States helped to draft.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced early Sunday that the release of Palestinian prisoners under the Gaza ceasefire agreement would be delayed until Hamas ends the "humiliating ceremony" it holds during the handover of Israeli hostages.

Netanyahu said in a statement that "it was decided to postpone the release of the terrorists that was planned for yesterday (Saturday) until the release of the next hostages is guaranteed, without humiliating ceremonies" and "until the next batch of Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip is handed over."

Netanyahu also said, following a security meeting that began late Saturday night/Sunday, that the release of Palestinian prisoners had been delayed due to "repeated Hamas violations."

These statements came hours after the handover of the Israeli hostages on Saturday, while it was expected that Israel would release more than 600 Palestinian prisoners that it had agreed to release in exchange for its hostages.

"Once these consultations are over, a decision will be made on the next stages" of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas, an Israeli official said on condition of anonymity.

According to the first and seventh stage, the bodies of only 4 Israelis remain to be handed over within this stage, which includes a total of 33 prisoners, 25 of whom are alive and 8 dead.

The seventh batch of the Saturday deal was supposed to bring the total number of Palestinian prisoners released to 1,755, including dozens who had been sentenced to life imprisonment.

Tel Aviv estimates that there are 63 Israeli prisoners in Gaza (living and dead), and it detains thousands of Palestinians in its prisons and commits torture, starvation, and medical neglect against them, which has led to the deaths of many of them, according to Palestinian and Israeli media and human rights reports.