Protests in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Saturday called for the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and a cease-fire, resulting in scuffles between demonstrators who blocked roads and police. Ariel Shalit/AP Hide Caption
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Ariel Shalit/Associated Press
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a Cabinet meeting scheduled to vote Thursday on a peace deal between Israel and Hamas has been postponed, dealing a blow to hopes that a ceasefire would take effect on Sunday after 15 months of fighting. Ta.
Prime Minister Netanyahu said talks would only take place if Hamas withdraws its demands, which he called “last-minute concessions,” adding in a statement that “Hamas will renege on part of the agreement with the mediator.” .
He said the cabinet meeting would not proceed until the mediator notified Israel that “all elements of the agreement” had been accepted. He did not specify which elements of the agreement Hamas had violated.
However, Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official, said in an interview with al-Arabi television that Netanyahu’s claims that Hamas was withdrawing parts of the ceasefire agreement were baseless.
Izzat al-Rishq, another member of Hamas’s political wing, said in a statement that Hamas “remains faithful to the ceasefire agreement announced by the mediator.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu called President Biden and President-elect Donald Trump late Wednesday to thank them for their cooperation in reaching the deal. But he also spoke to the coalition’s right wing, which has long opposed any deal with Hamas, even though it would lead to the return of dozens of Israelis held captive inside the Gaza Strip since October 2023. It also faces significant domestic political pressure from its members.
Several members of the coalition have repeatedly threatened to abandon the coalition if a deal is reached, a move likely to prompt the dissolution of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s current government.
But several moderate members of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s cabinet said publicly on Wednesday that all of his cabinet colleagues should vote in favor of the deal, as did the country’s President Isaac Herzog.
Hamas-led Gaza emergency relief authorities say 73 people were killed and more than 230 injured by Israeli forces in the hours after U.S. and Qatari officials announced the deal, and airstrikes continued overnight into Thursday morning. There is.
The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel from Gaza, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages to Gaza.
Gaza health officials say the war has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children. The Israeli military says 405 soldiers have died in combat since the invasion of Gaza.
