Benjamin Netanyahu has said that his cabinet will not meet to vote on the ceasefire and hostage release deal announced by Qatar to pause the war in Gaza until “Hamas accepts all elements of the agreement”, in a development that threatens to derail months of work to end the brutal 15-month conflict.
The announcement from the Israeli prime minister’s office on Thursday morning came before an expected cabinet meeting in which ministers were expected to ratify the deal reached in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Wednesday night.
“Hamas has reneged on parts of the agreement reached with the mediators and Israel in an effort to extort last-minute concessions,” the statement said, adding that the situation had created a “last-minute crisis”.
A few minutes after the Israeli statement, the senior Hamas official Izzat el-Reshiq said via the group’s Telegram channel that Hamas was committed to the ceasefire agreement, without giving further details.
In Gaza, fighting has continued despite expectations of a ceasefire, which is supposed to come into effect on Sunday. The civil defence agency said on Thursday that at least 73 people had been killed and 230 injured by Israeli airstrikes that pounded several areas overnight.
Netanyahu’s office did not specify which parts of the deal were still under discussion, but reports published in Israeli media before the agreement was announced on Wednesday suggested that Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza’s border with Egypt was the subject of 11th-hour discussions. Mediators later briefed that the issue had been resolved.
Israel’s Kan Radio reported on Thursday that the issue was related to the far-right cabinet minister Bezalel Smotrich’s opposition to the deal. Smotrich has been highly critical of earlier proposed deals with Hamas, although the agreement was expected to be ratified by a large cabinet majority even without the support of the finance minister or his fellow hardliner, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister.
Netanyahu and his defence minister, Israel Katz, met Smotrich on Wednesday after Ben-Gvir had asked him to join forces and pull their parties out of the coalition – potentially causing the government to fall – if the deal was agreed.
According to an Israeli television report, Smotrich presented Netanyahu with a list of conditions for his support, including a pledge that Israel would return to fighting should Hamas manage to retain control of Gaza, and to strictly limit the quantity of humanitarian aid allowed into the territory.
Israeli media widely reported this week that the government was prepared to resume hostilities after the end of the first six-week phase of the truce, during which hostages are supposed to be released.
According to Israeli daily Haaretz, Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Yossi Fuchs, said on Wednesday that the deal “includes the option to resume the fighting at the end of phase one if the negotiations over phase two don’t develop in a manner that promises the fulfilment of the war’s goals: military and civil annihilation of Hamas and a release of all hostages”.
The deal finalised in Doha by US, Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari negotiators after weeks of talks largely follows the contours of a truce agreement first set out last May.
In the first stage, which last 42 days, Hamas has agreed to release 33 hostages including children, women (including female soldiers) and those aged over 50. In exchange, Israel would release 50 Palestinian prisoners for every female Israeli soldier released by Hamas, and 30 for other hostages.
Palestinians displaced from their homes would be allowed to move freely around the Gaza Strip, which Israel has cut into two halves with a military corridor. Wounded people are supposed to be evacuated for treatment abroad, and aid to the territory should increase to 600 trucks a day – above the 500 minimum that aid agencies say is needed to contain Gaza’s devastating humanitarian crisis.
In the second phase, the remaining living hostages would be sent back and a corresponding ratio of Palestinian prisoners would be freed, and Israel would completely withdraw from the territory. The specifics are subject to further negotiations, which are due to start 16 days into the first phase.
The third phase would address the exchange of bodies of deceased hostages and Hamas members, and a reconstruction plan for Gaza would be launched. Arrangements for future governance of the strip remain hazy.
More than 15 months of war has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians and laid waste to most of Gaza’s infrastructure. The international court of justice is studying claims that Israel has committed genocide.
About 1,200 people in Israel were killed and another 250 taken hostage in the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023 that triggered the war. One hundred of the hostages were freed in exchange for 240 women and children held in Israeli jails as the result of a ceasefire deal struck in November 2023 that collapsed after a week.
