Negotiators on Thursday raced toward a last-ditch conflict resolution based on a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas that would free the hostages and end the violence that has ravaged the Gaza Strip for the past 15 months.
The dispute delayed a key Israeli vote to approve the deal by at least a day.
Israeli and Hamas negotiators reached a tentative agreement on Wednesday, but the two sides continued to discuss unresolved issues through a mediator. The ceasefire would need approval from Israel’s cabinet, which was scheduled to vote on it on Thursday, but the vote was postponed.
The deal has reignited deep divisions in Israel, with hard-liners in the ruling coalition fiercely opposed to the ceasefire. Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir announced on Thursday night that he would leave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government if the cabinet approves a cease-fire agreement.
The move risks destabilizing the government at a critical time, but does not in itself prevent the deal from moving forward.
The United States, which has struggled for months to broker a deal along with Qatar and Egypt, downplayed the delay and insisted the ceasefire would take effect on Sunday as scheduled.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters Thursday that he was “confident and fully hopeful that implementation will begin.” “It is not at all surprising that in a process so difficult, such a difficult process, such a difficult negotiation, we could reach an impasse. We are breaking the deadlock as we speak. is.”
He added that he was holding phone calls with the US envoy to the region and Qatari officials to try to resolve any final questions.
In Israel, the prime minister’s office accused Hamas of violating parts of the agreement.
“There is no agreement at this time,” Prime Minister Netanyahu’s spokesman Omer Dostri said in a text message on Thursday. “Therefore, there will be no cabinet meeting.”
Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq said Hamas remains committed to the agreement announced by the mediator.
Dostri said last-minute disagreements over the deal included issues such as which Palestinians would be freed and how Israeli troops would be deployed along the Gaza Strip-Egypt border during the truce. It is said that it is included.
After months of watching negotiations for a cease-fire agreement repeatedly break down, many Gazans, Israelis, and others have expressed only subdued hopes about the fate of the current deal. Ta.
“I wish I could say I’m happy,” said Fadia Nassar, 43, who lost her home in northern Gaza and fled to the south. He said the agreement “could fall apart for any reason.”
“My heart is broken,” she added. “They’ll probably be staying in tents. Hundreds of thousands of people will probably be living in tents.”
And on Thursday, deadly Israeli airstrikes took place in the Gaza Strip, with the Israeli military saying it had hit about 50 targets across the strip in a single day.
“The reality in the Gaza Strip remains extremely difficult and devastating,” said Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza Civil Defense, an emergency service under the Interior Ministry run by Hamas.
Recent Israeli attacks on the territory have left at least 81 people dead and nearly 200 injured. According to The Gaza Ministry of Health does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. The Civil Defense Agency said at least 77 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes since the agreement was announced. These claims could not be independently verified.
The Israeli military said recent targets include Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, their strongholds, weapons caches and other locations, and said it had taken “a number of measures to prevent harm to civilians before the attack.” ” has been taken, it added.
Mediators say the cease-fire deal, which begins with a 42-day cease-fire and the release of some hostages, will finally end the war that started with a Hamas-led attack in October 2023 that killed about 1,200 people in Israel. I’m looking forward to it. 250 people are taken hostage. Subsequent Israeli military operations killed tens of thousands of Gazans and forced nearly the entire population of the enclave to flee their homes.
In Israel, Ben Gvir and other hardline members of Netanyahu’s government, the most right-wing and religiously conservative in Israel’s history, oppose the deal and advocate continuing the war until Hamas is eliminated.
Ben Gvir’s Jewish Power party holds six seats in the 120-member parliament, and if it were to leave the ruling coalition, its majority would plummet from 68 to 62. He said his party would offer to rejoin the coalition government. If the government resumes war with Hamas.
Earlier on Thursday, dozens of Israeli demonstrators blocked a main road in Jerusalem to protest the deal, but were eventually dispersed by police.
One demonstrator, Eliyahu Shahar, 21, said the deal threatened Israel’s security and should be rejected “even if it means the death of more hostages.” said.
If a vote is held, the ceasefire agreement is expected to be approved by Israel, even without the support of the two far-right parties in the ruling coalition. Families of the hostages have welcomed the deal, and opposition parties are broadly committed to supporting Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition as necessary to ensure implementation of the deal to free Israelis still held in Gaza. I am doing it.
“This is more important than all the differences that have ever existed between us,” Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said in a statement.
Jonah Schnitzer, 36, a marketing writer in Tel Aviv, said she feels “cautiously optimistic” about the deal. “I hope this agreement actually becomes a reality,” he said. “If that is confirmed and an agreement is reached, I will be relieved, firstly because the hostages will be back home, and secondly because it will bring us closer to the end of this war.”
The ceasefire agreement will begin with an initial phase lasting six weeks. The agreement includes the release of 33 hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and allows 600 trucks carrying humanitarian aid to enter Gaza each day, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by The New York Times. That’s what it means.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the ceasefire agreement was “the hope the region desperately needed”. But she added that the situation in Gaza remained difficult. she announced Europe plans to provide $123 million in aid to Gazans this year, along with food shipments and other in-kind aid.
Diplomats hope the first phase of the deal will lead to more permanent terms, a point Mr. Blinken emphasized Thursday.
“It will take significant effort, political courage and compromise to realize that potential and ensure that the gains made over the past 15 months, at great and intolerable cost, are perpetuated,” he said. he said.
But fear and fatigue reigned in Gaza, where ruins dominate and big questions remain about what the post-war future holds.
Nizar Hamad, 31, who lost his home in Gaza City, said: “I definitely feel good after hearing the news of the ceasefire.” “But when we think about life after the war, we think about the suffering that will continue. The scale of destruction and loss is enormous.”
“Honestly, I feel numb,” said Ashir Moutier, 22, from Beit Lahia in northern Gaza. My 16-year-old brother was killed in the war, and my house was destroyed last week.
“We’re just waiting for Sunday,” she added. “I don’t know what will happen between now and then.”
Lawan Sheikh Ahmad Contributed report from Haifa, Israel. Isabel Kershner and natan odenheimer From Jerusalem.
