Closing summary
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Summary:
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said early on Friday that a deal to return hostages held in the Gaza Strip has been reached. The announcement comes a day after Netanyahu’s office said there were last-minute snags in talks to free hostages in return for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Netanyahu said he will convene his security cabinet later on Friday and then the government to approve the ceasefire agreement. On Thursday, Netanyahu’s office said the cabinet won’t meet to approve the agreement for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of dozens of hostages until Hamas backs down, accusing the group of reneging on parts of the agreement in an attempt to gain further concessions.
Senior US officials insisted the hard-won ceasefire would go into effect on Sunday as planned despite the unexpected delay. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said he was “very confident” that the ceasefire would go forward and he “fully expects that implementation will begin, as we said, on Sunday”. He confirmed that there had been a “loose end” between the sides in the complex negotiations. US representatives are still believed to be actively involved with talks in Doha on the final details needed to get the deal over the line.
A vote is now expected to take place on Friday morning, Israeli media reported. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, announced on Thursday evening that he would quit the government if it ratifies the ceasefire deal, calling it “irresponsible” and “reckless”. Ben-Gvir’s departure would not bring down Netanyahu’s government. Opposition leader Yair Lapid pledged his support for Netanyahu, saying that the deal was “more important than any disagreement we’ve ever had.”
Fighting has continued in Gaza despite expectations of a ceasefire, with at least 80 Palestinians killed and hundreds more injured by Israeli airstrikes since the ceasefire announcement, according to the civil defence agency. The Israeli military said that it had conducted strikes on “approximately 50 terror targets” across Gaza since late Wednesday. A civil defence spokesperson said its teams had recovered the bodies of five children after a strike on the northern city of Jabalia.
More than 46,788 Palestinians have been killed and a further 110,453 wounded by Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, according to the latest figures by the territory’s health ministry on Thursday. They include 81 killed and 188 injured in the past 24 hours. Among them was Fatin Shaqoura-Salha, the chief of nursing staff at Al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat, ActionAid said.
The ceasefire agreement, announced on Wednesday, was due to come into effect on Sunday. In the first phase, to last 42 days, Hamas agreed to release 33 hostages and 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 Gaza, wounded people would be vacuated for treatment abroad, and aid to the territory should increase to 600 trucks a day. A second phase would include Israel completely withdrawing from Gaza.
The leader of Yemen’s Houthis, Abdul-Malik Badr al-Din al-Houthi, said the Iran-aligned group would suspend their attacks on Red Sea targets but continue if Israel backtracks on the ceasefire. The Houthi attacks have damaged as many as 30 ships and caused a diversion of commercial shipping to South Africa and the Cape of Good Hope. Reprisals by the US, Israel and the UK have damaged key Yemen ports and led to multiple deaths.
Arab states are urging Israel and the incoming Trump administration to allow the Palestinian Authority (PA), in conjunction with the UN Palestinian relief agency Unrwa, to oversee Gaza’s recovery. The future governance of Gaza is due to be discussed at the start of negotiations on the second stage of the deal 16 days after a ceasefire begins.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement that a deal to return hostages held in Gaza has been reached came a day after the Israeli prime minister’s office said there were last-minute snags in the ceasefire talks.
On Thursday, Netanyahu’s office said the cabinet wouldn’t meet to approve the agreement for a truce in Gaza and the release of dozens of hostages until Hamas backed down, accusing the militant group of reneging on parts of the deal in an attempt to gain further concessions, the Associated Press reports.
Meanwhile, Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 72 people since the ceasefire deal was announced, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Palestinians in Gaza reported heavy Israeli bombardment overnight as people were celebrating the ceasefire deal. In previous conflicts, both sides have stepped up military operations in the final hours before ceasefires go into effect as a way to project strength.
Under the deal, expected to begin on Sunday, 33 hostages are set to be released over the next six weeks, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. The remainder, including male soldiers, are to be released in a second phase that will be negotiated during the first.
Hamas has said it will not release the remaining captives without a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal.
Updated
Israel PM's office says hostage-ceasefire deal reached – reports
Israeli and Hamas negotiating teams have signed a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Qatar, according to Israeli media.
The Times of Israel quoted a statement from Benjamin Netanyahu’s office as saying the Israeli prime minister had convened a security cabinet meeting for Friday in order to hold a vote on the deal.
“The [full cabinet] will later convene to approve the deal,” the statement adds.
The Israeli negotiating team called Netanyahu a short while ago to inform him the deal was reached, with him thanking them for their efforts, it said.
The families of the remaining 98 hostages have also been updated, according to the statement, which says Netanyahu instructed authorities to work together on preparations for receiving the captives who will be freed as part of the deal.
Netanyahu’s office added:
The state of Israel is committed to achieving all the goals of the war, including the return of all our hostages, both the living and the dead.
Haaretz also reported that a hostage deal had been reached.
The Jerusalem Post said the government plenum was currently set to vote on the measure on Saturday, which would delay the release of the first hostages until Monday, rather than Sunday as initially planned.
The vote is expected to cause significant opposition in the government, the Post reports, with three ministers already promising to quit if the Israel-Hamas war does not continue
Updated
Israel has agreed to a Gaza ceasefire deal and the cabinet will meet on Friday, Reuters has just reported Israeli media as saying.
Updated
Israeli warplanes have kept up intense strikes in Gaza while Israel delayed a cabinet vote on the ceasefire and hostage release deal.
Palestinian authorities said late on Thursday that at least 86 people were killed in the day after the truce was unveiled.
The Israel Defense Forces said late on Thursday that in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet, the air force had attacked about 50 terrorist targets throughout Gaza in the past 24 hours.
The US, however, said it still expected the agreement to go into effect on Sunday as planned.
White House spokesperson John Kirby said Washington believed the agreement was on track and the was expected to proceed “as soon as late this weekend”.
“We are seeing nothing that would tell us that this is going to get derailed at this point,” Reuters reports him telling CNN on Thursday.
With longstanding divisions apparent among ministers, Israel delayed meetings expected on Thursday where the cabinet would vote on the pact, blaming Hamas for the hold-up. Israeli media reports said voting could occur on Friday or Saturday.
Updated
Egypt urges truce deal be implemented 'without delay'
Egypt’s chief diplomat has called on Israel and Hamas to implement the Gaza ceasefire plan “without any delay”, raising pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the deal.
Foreign minister Badr Abdelatty declined to comment on the Israeli prime minister’s claims that Hamas has “reneged” on certain pledges in the agreement. But, speaking to the Associated Press, Abdelatty said a deal had been reached thanks to “deep involvement” by US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators, including officials from Donald Trump’s incoming administration.
“We have a deal. What’s very important is to start implementation,” Abdelatty said from the foreign ministry’s headquarters in the New Administrative Capital, a newly built city east of Cairo.
What we are doing now is to push for final approval and implementation, without any delay.
Cairo is supposed to be the location for continued talks between the US, Qatar and Egypt on implementing the deal. Abdelatty said the talks were set to begin soon, and that the mediators would have an “operation room” overseeing the deal in the Egyptian capital.
He said:
We are fully committed to fulfil our own commitments and we are expecting that others to fulfil their own commitments.
Updated
EU pledges €120m in new aid for Gaza
The European Union has said it will deliver €120m ($123m) in fresh aid for Gaza to address the “ongoing humanitarian crisis” there.
The package would include food, healthcare and shelter assistance and support to allow access to clean water, said a statement from the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm.
Agence France-Presse reports the commission as saying a day after the announcement of a ceasefire deal that the new package brought the EU’s humanitarian assistance to Gaza to more than €450m since 2023. The EU had also conducted flights that delivered over 3,800 tonnes of aid.
EU spokesperson Anouar El Anouni said Brussels hoped the ceasefire would “allow vastly improved access for humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip, and that aid can be effectively distributed to those in need”.
Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Mustafa is in Brussels for meetings with senior EU officials including European Council chief Antonio Costa on Thursday and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas on Friday.
EU crisis management chief Hadja Lahbib met Mustafa earlier on Thursday, after which she said they “discussed the huge needs in Gaza and the West Bank and how to address them”.
Updated
Palestinians in Gaza are eager to leave bleak tent camps and return to their homes if a ceasefire agreement halts the war, but many will find there is nothing left and no way to rebuild, as the Associated Press reports.
Israeli bombardment and ground operations have transformed entire neighbourhoods in several cities into rubble-strewn wastelands, with blackened shells of buildings and mounds of debris stretching away in all directions.
Major roads have been plowed up. Critical water and electricity infrastructure is in ruins. Most hospitals no longer function.
And it’s unclear when – or even if – much will be rebuilt.
The agreement for a phased ceasefire and the release of hostages held by Hamas-led militants does not say who will govern Gaza after the war, or whether Israel and Egypt will lift a blockade limiting the movement of people and goods that they imposed when Hamas seized power in 2007.
The UN says it could take more than 350 years to rebuild if the blockade remains.
Updated
In case you missed this story earlier, families of hostages being held in Gaza have said the delays to the ceasefire and hostage deal have left them in limbo and agony.
Stephen Brisley, whose brother-in-law Eli Sharabi, 52, was taken hostage from the Be’eri kibbutz, said the delays had caused “further torture” for his family. Brisley’s sister Lianne Sharabi, a British citizen, and her daughters Noiya and Yahel were killed in Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack.
Brisley said:
I don’t really know how to feel because it’s still quite difficult to process and doesn’t feel quite real.
I’m saying I’m cautiously optimistic, but a bit wary at the same time because we’ve had so many false dawns in the past.
The full story from Emine Sinmaz and Bethan McKernan can be read here:
An envoy from president-elect Donald Trump took part in the final negotiations on the ceasefire deal side-by-side with an incumbent official in Biden’s White House in a highly unusual arrangement, as Agence France-Presse reports.
In Washington, US secretary of state Antony Blinken was asked about Trump claiming he sealed the deal and Blinken responded: “The important thing is not who gets the credit; the important thing is getting the results.”
Virtually everything that now needs to be implemented under the agreement will be implemented under the Trump administration.
It was very important for the parties to know that the Trump administration stood behind the agreement that we negotiated.
Asked whether the Biden administration would leave without any determination on whether Israel had carried out human rights violations, Blinken said:
In Gaza, we faced a uniquely challenging situation in trying to make final determinations.
Uniquely in Gaza, besides having a population that’s been trapped there that has nowhere else to go, you have an enemy that embeds itself in and among civilians, houses, hospitals, mosques, schools.
Blinken, speaking at a farewell news conference, also defended his own record on human rights, pointing to statements and sanctions against extremist Israeli settlers over violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
This is Adam Fulton picking up our live coverage
Updated
Summary of the day so far
It’s nearly 1am in Tel Aviv and Gaza. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, delayed a cabinet meeting originally scheduled for Thursday to vote on and ratify a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal. In a statement released before a planned security cabinet and wider government meeting, Netanyahu’s office accused Hamas of having “reneged on parts of the agreement” which had created a “last-minute crisis”, and said cabinet would not convene until “Hamas accepts all elements of the agreement”. A senior Hamas official, Izzat el-Reshiq, said after Netanyahu’s announcement that the group remained committed to the ceasefire deal.
Senior US officials insisted the hard-won ceasefire would go into effect on Sunday as planned despite the unexpected delay. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said he was “very confident” that the ceasefire would go forward and he “fully expects that implementation will begin, as we said, on Sunday”. He confirmed that there had been a “loose end” between the sides in the complex negotiations. US representatives are still believed to be actively involved with talks in Doha on the final details needed to get the deal over the line.
A vote is now expected to take place on Friday morning, Israeli media reported. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, announced on Thursday evening that he would quit the government if it ratifies the ceasefire deal, calling it “irresponsible” and “reckless”. Ben-Gvir’s departure would not bring down Netanyahu’s government. Opposition leader Yair Lapid pledged his support for Netanyahu, saying that the deal was “more important than any disagreement we’ve ever had.”
Fighting has continued in Gaza despite expectations of a ceasefire, with at least 80 Palestinians killed and hundreds more injured by Israeli airstrikes since the ceasefire announcement, according to the civil defence agency. The Israeli military said that it had conducted strikes on “approximately 50 terror targets” across Gaza since late Wednesday. A civil defence spokesperson said its teams had recovered the bodies of five children after a strike on the northern city of Jabalia.
More than 46,788 Palestinians have been killed and a further 110,453 wounded by Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, according to the latest figures by the territory’s health ministry on Thursday. They include 81 killed and 188 injured in the past 24 hours. Among them was Fatin Shaqoura-Salha, the chief of nursing staff at Al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat, ActionAid said.
The ceasefire agreement, announced on Wednesday but which has not been formally agreed, is supposed to come into effect on Sunday. In the first phase, to last 42 days, Hamas agreed to release 33 hostages and 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 Gaza, wounded people would be vacuated for treatment abroad, and aid to the territory should increase to 600 trucks a day. A second phase would include Israel completely withdrawing from Gaza.
The leader of Yemen’s Houthis, Abdul-Malik Badr al-Din al-Houthi, said the Iran-aligned group would suspend their attacks on Red Sea targets but continue if Israel backtracks on the ceasefire. The Houthi attacks have damaged as many as 30 ships and caused a diversion of commercial shipping to South Africa and the Cape of Good Hope. Reprisals by the US, Israel and the UK have damaged key Yemen ports and led to multiple deaths.
Arab states are urging Israel and the incoming Trump administration to allow the Palestinian Authority (PA), in conjunction with the UN Palestinian relief agency Unrwa, to oversee Gaza’s recovery. The future governance of Gaza is due to be discussed at the start of negotiations on the second stage of the deal 16 days after a ceasefire begins.
Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, threatened on Thursday to resign from prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government if it ratifies the ceasefire deal.
“The deal that is taking shape is a reckless deal,” he said in a televised statement, saying it would “erase the achievements of the war” by releasing hundreds of Palestinian militants and withdrawing from strategic areas in Gaza, leaving Hamas undefeated.
White House confident that ceasefire deal on a 'glidepath towards implementation'
The White House’s national security spokesperson, John Kirby, struck an optimistic tone regarding the prospects for implementing the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal during an interview with CNN.
“We believe we’re on a good path here to begin implementation by the weekend,” said Kirby, adding: “We’ve seen nothing that would tell us this will get derailed at this point.”
Kirby acknowledged the impact the deal is having on prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fragile coalition but remarked that “Israeli politics has to churn through this.”
He expressed confidence, however, that the deal was on a “glidepath towards implementation.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper also asked about Joe Biden’s legacy in light of the significant civilian costs in Gaza during the course of the fighting and the impact it had on Biden’s administration.
Kirby defended the outgoing president’s record, saying that the US “came to the defence of our ally and friend Israel, in fact to the point of putting US pilots and US jets in the air to defend Israel from missiles and drones fired by Iran, and kept the IDF in the fight.”
Updated
'We are living on our nerves': Families await release of Palestinian prisoners
Families of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails are eagerly awaiting their release following a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel that will liberate hundreds of detainees.
One thousand Palestinians arrested by Israeli troops in Gaza after the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023 who did not take part in the offensive will be released, and some of the freed Palestinians from the West Bank will be sent to third countries rather than be allowed to return home.
Mervat Moadi, 53, from the village of Jifna, north of Ramallah, was waiting anxiously for the official list of Palestinian prisoners to be released. Her husband, Marwan, 64, was jailed in 2012 for allegedly participating in an infamous incident in the second intifada in which two army reservists who got lost were lynched by a crowd at a police station in Ramallah in 2000. He denies any wrongdoing, saying he was present in a crowd of funeral mourners.
The couple have three sons, and grandchildren the man has never met. “The last time I visited him was in July 2023, and after that we were unable to see him during the war,” Mervat said. ‘
I am very nervous. My heart tells me that I will see him. Every hour that passes feels like a year. Waiting is very difficult for the family. We, as wives of prisoners, whether Palestinian or Israeli, suffer every moment. We do not know when we will see our loved ones.
‘‘The moment of waiting and anticipation is a deadly one,” she said.
Updated
Israel’s minister of diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, Amichai Chikli, has threatened to resign if Israel withdraws from the Philadelphi corridor, as outlined in phase one of the ceasefire deal.
In a statement posted to X, he wrote:
I hereby undertake that if, God forbid, there is a withdrawal from the Philadelphi corridor (before the war goals are achieved), or if we do not return to fighting in order to complete the war goals – I will resign from my position as a government minister.
Chikli’s announcement is significant as he is the first member of the Likud party, led by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to threaten to quit over details of the agreement.
Here are some of the latest images from Israel, where protesters have gathered in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Thursday night ahead of an expected ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
Updated
Palestinian leaders who administer the occupied West Bank are preparing themselves in case they are tasked with running critical services and setting up an interim government in Gaza.
The Palestinian prime minister, Mohammad Mustafa, met with top officials to discuss plans for reintegrating government institutions in Gaza, Associated Press reported.
This would include the Palestinian territory’s healthcare, education, water and power sectors, as well as coordinating a surge of humanitarian aid.
There is still no plan for who will govern Gaza after the war. Israel has said it will work with local Palestinians not affiliated with Hamas or the western-backed Palestinian Authority.
Updated
The World Health Organization (WHO) has assessed that at least $10bn will be needed to rebuild Gaza’s devastated health system over the next five to seven years.
“In Gaza, we all know the destruction is so massive. I have never seen that anywhere else in my life,” WHO representative in the Palestinian territories, Rik Peeperkorn, told reporters.
Meanwhile, the UN health agency urged the international community to step up and fund a scaled-up aid response in Gaza after Wednesday’s announcement that Israel and Hamas had reached a ceasefire agreement.
Part of the ceasefire deal – which has not been formally agreed – requires 600 truckloads of humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza every day.
“The UN cannot deliver the response alone,” Peeperkorn said. He said the WHO was ready to deliver, although the “significant security and political obstacles to delivering aid across Gaza” need to be removed.
During his press conference, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s extreme-right security minister, also made his own suggestion for retrieving the hostages held by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in Gaza.
Ben-Gvir advocated for completely cutting off humanitarian aid to Gaza until the hostages are released. He said:
How is it that we are giving gas to our enemies? What kind of country gives gas to those who massacre and rape?
Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, has pledged his support for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu after threats from extremist national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, to quit if the ceasefire deal is approved.
“I say to Benjamin Netanyahu, don’t be afraid or intimidated, you will get every safety net you need to make the hostage deal,” Lapid wrote on X.
“This is more important than any disagreement we’ve ever had.”
Amid continuing airstrikes, bitter cold and news of delays, millions in Gaza were waiting anxiously on Thursday for confirmation that the ceasefire-for-hostages deal between Hamas and Israel was going ahead.
Many spoke of their fear that hopes of a new beginning after a 15-month conflict might be dashed. The war has killed many tens of thousands in the territory and reduced swathes of it to ruins.
“So far, the news is tense about the deal … so we follow the news 24 hours a day. The deal’s failure is possible, because the Israelis do not want Gaza and its people to rest and breathe,” said Muhammad al-Hebbil, 37, who was displaced early in the war from his home in the northern town of Beit Lahiya to Gaza City.
“Now everyone wishes to go to sleep and wake up on Sunday, when the fighting has stopped. The waiting is very difficult,” Hebbil said.
Read the full story here: ‘We will be betrayed’: cold, fearful and still under fire, Gaza’s people wait
Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatens to quit over ceasefire deal
Israel’s extremist national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has threatened to resign from prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government if the cabinet ratifies the ceasefire deal.
Ben-Gvir, in a press conference, said his Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Strength) party will leave the coalition if the deal, which he described as “reckless”, is approved.
He said his party would offer to rejoin the government if fighting in Gaza continued.
Ben-Gvir’s party holds six seats in the 120-seat Knesset. Even it it leaves the government, it would not rob Netanyahu of a parliamentary majority.
As we reported earlier, the cabinet is believed to be holding a vote on Friday to ratify the agreement, but there has been no confirmation from the prime minister’s office.
Updated
The UK-based charity Christian Aid is mourning the loss of 33-year old Ihab Faisal, a humanitarian worker of one of Christian Aid’s local partners who was killed by Israeli forces shortly after the announcement of the ceasefire deal.
Faisal, who worked for the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), was killed along with his wife and two children by an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City in the early hours of Thursday, the charity said.
In a statement on Thursday, the charity’s program manager Katie Roxburgh said:
“Throughout the war, our partners have not stopped trying to relieve the suffering of families across Gaza. Now Ihab, like others before him, has paid the ultimate price. The timing is brutal.
“We fear more horrendous news like this in the coming days. The ceasefire cannot come soon enough. It is already too late for so many innocent civilians.”
In a separate statement, PCHR director Raji Sourani said:
“Ihab was a man of great character and commitment, always dedicated to his work even under the most difficult and dangerous conditions. He was a father to two young daughters, and a hard-working and devoted son to his family. The brutality of the occupation is reflected in every detail of our lives; it kills our children and destroys our dreams.”
Egypt said on Thursday that the implementation of the ceasefire deal must “start without delay”, Agence France-Presse reports.
On Thursday, the Egyptian foreign minister Badr Abdelatty had a call with US secretary of state Antony Blinken during which Abdelatty stressed “the need for the parties to adhere to its provisions and work to implement its stages on the specified dates”.
Separately, the Egyptian foreign ministry said that Egypt was ready to host an international conference on reconstruction of Gaza.
According to the United Nations, Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has caused such extensive destruction that will take more than a decade to rebuild civilian infrastructure.
Updated
The White House has released the following readout of Vice-President Kamala Harris’s latest call with Israeli president Isaac Herzog:
“The Vice President reaffirmed her unwavering commitment to the security of Israel. The Vice President and President Herzog discussed the ceasefire and hostage deal that has been reached between Israel and Hamas thanks to the efforts of President Biden, and she expressed that we expect it to be implemented fully and on schedule.
The Vice President welcomed that the deal would return hostages to their families, bring immediate relief to the people of Gaza through a surge in humanitarian aid, and form the basis for a lasting end to the war and security for Israel.
The Vice President also expressed her belief that the ceasefire and hostage deal can be the foundation on which we build to create a more peaceful future for Israeli and Palestinian people, and her intent to continue working to achieve a future of greater peace, dignity, and security for all people in the region.”
Updated
Houthis suspend attacks on Red Sea targets but says it will resume if Israel backtracks on ceasefire
The Houthi leadership in Yemen suspended their military attacks on western commercial shipping in the Red Sea but will monitor the implementation of the Gaza ceasefire and continue their attacks if Israel backtracks on the ceasefire or causes further “massacres”.
The announcement was made by Abdul-Malik Badr al-Din al-Houthi in a lengthy speech hailing Palestinian steadfastness, and attacking Arab leaders for not doing more to show solidarity with the Palestinians. The Houthis started the attacks on shipping in November 2023, as well as firing some missiles into Israel.
The attacks have damaged as many as 30 ships and caused a diversion of commercial shipping to South Africa and the Cape of Good Hope. Reprisals by the US, Israel and the UK have damaged key Yemen ports and led to multiple deaths. Al-Houthi claimed more than 1,200 attacks had been mounted on shipping or Israel in various forms. Al-Houthi vowed:
We will continue to monitor and follow up on the developments in Palestine after the ceasefire agreement. Therefore, at any stage in which the Israeli enemy returns to aggression and escalation, we will be ready to support.
He added: “We will confront any attempts at revenge, whether from the Israelis, the Americans, or those who orbit around them, or any attempts to distance our country from its liberating jihadist orientation.”
He claimed that 106 Yemenis had been killed and 328 wounded as a result of western reprisals. He explained:
This is one round of confrontation with the Israeli enemy, but the issue remains and the injustice of the Palestinian people is permanent until they enjoy freedom and independence.
He added: “The pressures on our country and the threats have never stopped, and the messages of those advising us to retreat or stop were many, but they did not affect our position.”
He claimed the Houthi government had in mounting the attacks surprised the world by their inventiveness, and ability to challenge American battleships.
Some major shipping companies said they will not immediately be recommencing operations along the Red Sea route until they have greater clarity.
Updated
The children’s charity Plan International UK said it was “utterly appalled” after reports that Israeli bombings have killed more than 20 children in Gaza on Thursday.
“It is critical that the ceasefire announced yesterday is immediately ratified and implemented by all parties,” said the organisation’s director of influencing and external affairs, Kathleen Spencer Chapman.
The children of Gaza are in dire need of food, water, and shelter – and we are in a race against time to reach them. Hunger, dehydration, and disease kill just as surely as bullets and bombs, and every hour wasted places more children’s lives at risk.
After 15 months of unimaginable violence, the children of Gaza finally have a moment of hope. It is time to put an end to this horror and support Gaza’s families to rebuild their lives and homes. There must be no further delays.
Updated
We reported earlier that Israeli media said the cabinet would meet tomorrow to approve the Gaza ceasefire deal.
An Israeli official has confirmed to Agence-France-Presse that the cabinet is scheduled to meet on Friday to vote on a hostage release and ceasefire deal in Gaza.
Israeli authorities have denied United Nations aid agencies access to Rafah as they prepare to scale up aid delivery to Gaza under the ceasefire deal, according to a UN official.
“We would have liked to go to Rafah – we’ve been asking for months to go to Rafah to access our logistics base and fuel depots,” Georgios Petropoulos, head of the Gaza section of the UN’s office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, told the Washington Post on Thursday.
But the Israeli military denied the UN’s requests on Thursday to travel there, he said.
“We understand the Israeli military must be preparing for whatever moves they do” to withdraw some forces under the deal, Petropoulos said, “but we are completely in the dark here.”
The ceasefire that is due to come into force on Sunday – barring a major last-minute problem – will cement massive and rapid changes across the Middle East and may seal a significant defeat for the Islamist militant groups which have been powerful actors in the region for years.
Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and assorted Shia Muslim militia in Iraq and Syria will all emerge from the conflict considerably weakened. Only the Houthis in Yemen are stronger – though this may not last. The Islamic State remains a shadow of its former self.
For an organisation like Hamas simply to survive a major conflict is an achievement, and means Israel has failed to achieve one of its primary war aims. But the concessions made by Hamas since coming close to a ceasefire last May underline its enfeebled state.
Though no reliable statistics exist and Hamas has undoubtedly recruited many new fighters, its military arm has been badly degraded by the Israeli onslaught, with most senior and middle-ranking commanders killed.
Read the full analysis: Islamist groups in Middle East will emerge from Gaza war weakened
Updated
More than 80 Palestinians killed by Israeli strikes since ceasefire announcement, says Gaza's civil defence agency
An Israeli airstrike killed five Palestinians to the west of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Since Qatar announced on Wednesday that a ceasefire deal had been reached – but which has not yet been formally agreed – Gaza’s civil defence agency reported that Israel had “escalated” its strikes across the territory.
Israeli strikes have killed 81 people and injured 188 others, according to Wafa. A civil defence spokesperson said its teams had recovered the bodies of five children after a strike on the northern city of Jabalia.
The Israeli military said it had conducted strikes on “approximately 50 terror targets across the Gaza Strip” since late Wednesday.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has expressed concern that Israeli airstrikes were still killing Palestinians in Gaza despite a ceasefire deal announced a day earlier.
“The Israeli government should not be allowed to violate and exploit the ceasefire,” Erdoğan said at a news conference.
The international community should fulfil its legal and moral responsibility toward the people of Gaza.
Israeli cabinet to vote on ceasefire deal on Friday – report
As we reported earlier, Israeli media is reporting that the remaining disputes over the Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal have been resolved.
The Israeli cabinet is now expected to convene on Friday morning to ratify the deal, Axios is reporting, citing an Israeli official.
Updated
Blinken says he is 'confident' in ceasefire and expects it will go into effect on Sunday
US secretary of state Antony Blinken, at the briefing, is asked how confident he feels that the ceasefire will actually happen.
“On the ceasefire, I am confident,” he replied. “I fully expect that implementation will begin … on Sunday.”
He noted that the process of negotiations has been “challenging” and that “you may get a loose end.”
We’re tying up that loose end as we speak. I’ve been on the phone in one way or another all morning with [White House Middle East adviser'] Brett McGurk, with our Qatari friends, and I’m very confident that we will [see this] moving forward, and that we’ll see the start of the implementation of the agreement on Sunday.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken, during his news conference, was interrupted several times by anti-war protesters seated in the state department briefing room.
“How does it feel to have your legacy be genocide?” A man shouted at Blinken.
A little while later, the US secretary was asked “why aren’t you in The Hague?”
Updated
There are reports that the remaining disputes over the ceasefire deal have been resolved.
Aryeh Deri, the head of Shas, announced that the obstacles preventing the implementation of the ceasefire deal with Hamas have been dealt with, the Times of Israel reported.
“A few minutes ago I received a final announcement that all obstacles have been overcome and the deal is underway,” the paper quotes him saying.
“Now they are busy with the final technical wording. I want to congratulate prime minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu, he is responsible for the agreement.”
Israeli officials have told the Jerusalem Post that “all divisions have been solved.”
Axios, citing a US sources, also reports that the agreement is now “done”.
Updated
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is holding a news conference where he said he expected the ceasefire agreement to go into effect on Sunday.
“As President Biden said yesterday, after more than 400 days of struggle, a day of success has arrived,” he said, describing it as a “moment of tremendous relief for Israelis and Palestinians alike”.
Blinken said it would take “tremendous effort, political courage, compromise” to ensure that the deal endures.
Summary of the day so far
It’s nearly 6.30pm in Tel Aviv and Gaza. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has delayed a cabinet meeting on Thursday to vote on and ratify a ceasefire and hostage release deal announced by the leaders of Qatar and the US a day before. Netanyahu’s office accused Hamas of having “reneged on parts of the agreement” which had created a “last-minute crisis”, and said cabinet would not convene until “Hamas accepts all elements of the agreement”.
Fighting has continued in Gaza despite expectations of a ceasefire, with at least 80 Palestinians killed and hundreds more injured by Israeli airstrikes since the ceasefire announcement, according to the civil defence agency. The Israeli military said that it had conducted strikes on “approximately 50 terror targets” across Gaza since late Wednesday. A civil defence spokesperson said its teams had recovered the bodies of five children after a strike on the northern city of Jabalia.
More than 46,788 Palestinians have been killed and a further 110,453 wounded by Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, according to the latest figures by the territory’s health ministry on Thursday. They include 81 killed and 188 injured in the past 24 hours. Among them was Fatin Shaqoura-Salha, the chief of nursing staff at Al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat, ActionAid said.
A senior Hamas official, Izzat el-Reshiq, said after Netanyahu’s announcement that the group remained committed to the ceasefire deal, without giving further details. The White House’s national security spokesperson John Kirby said the US is “confident” that issues holding up the ratification of the deal would be resolved. US representatives are still believed to be actively involved with talks in Doha on the final details needed to get the deal over the line.
The ceasefire agreement, announced on Wednesday but which has not been formally agreed, is supposed to come into effect on Sunday. In the first phase, to last 42 days, Hamas agreed to release 33 hostages and 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 Gaza, wounded people would be vacuated for treatment abroad, and aid to the territory should increase to 600 trucks a day. A second phase would include Israel completely withdrawing from Gaza.
The EU announced it would deliver €120m ($123m) in new aid for Gaza, bringing the bloc’s humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian territory to more than €450m since 2023. The package will include food, healthcare and shelter assistance and support to allow access to clean water, the European Commission said.
A ceasefire deal in Gaza should be positive for Israel’s under-pressure credit rating, Fitch’s top sovereign rating analyst has said.
Israel’s “A” rating is currently on a downgrade warning, or a “negative outlook” in rating agency-speak.
Fitch’s head of sovereign ratings said:
We’ve got Israel on negative, I guess that’s something that’s really related to public finances associated with the war. To the extent that (the war) can sort of stabilise, that would be positive I think there.
Israel’s rating had never been downgraded before last year, but the heavy cost of the last 15 months of fighting in both Gaza and Lebanon saw it cut multiple times by the major rating firms such as Fitch, S&P Global and Moody’s.
The ceasefire to end the 15-month war in Gaza has been welcomed by British Palestinian and British Israeli and Jewish communities, with the government being urged to now support the injured and launch a family reunification scheme.
The UK’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, described the ceasefire agreement, which will enable the release of 33 hostages initially, as a “moment of incalculable relief and a long-awaited ray of light in the midst of unbearable darkness”.
Sara Husseini, director of the British Palestinian Committee, underscored the immense toll the conflict has had on Gaza.
She said:
The past 15 months of relentless massacre and starvation of our loved ones and systematic destruction of all facets of civic life in Gaza has shown the world just how far Israel is willing and able to go in advancing its expansionist agenda.
Here are some of the latest images from photographers on the ground in Gaza and Israel:
Analysis: deal should benefit Netanyahu in short term, but he is critically exposed
The nature of Israel’s febrile coalition politics has long favoured theatrics. The standing and psychology of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, adds a further element of panic and cynical calculation.
All those characteristics were in evidence as Israel and Hamas edged towards a ceasefire deal, particularly in Netanyahu’s struggle to triangulate his portrayal of an agreement that has the potential to damage him politically.
The deal, as many in the Israeli media have not been slow to point out, is essentially identical to the agreement that Netanyahu torpedoed over the summer, leaving more Israeli hostages and soldiers to die in the intervening months.
Moreover, for Israel’s right and far right specifically, it is not clear how a negotiated settlement accords with Netanyahu’s promise of “total victory” and Hamas’s complete defeat. Instead, the deal, if it holds, offers the possibility that Hamas will survive, with its wounded going to Egypt to be treated.
The reality is that an open-ended war in Gaza has always suited Netanyahu and his supporters more than the interest of Israelis as a whole.
It has allowed Netanyahu and his supporters to kick the issue of accountability for the failings associated with Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 into the long grass. It has also allowed the Israeli prime minister, on trial for corruption charges, to present an image in the dock of a figure preoccupied with his country’s security for whom the proceedings are a distraction.
As a wartime leader, he has invoked the longstanding convention in Israel that unity should trump politics to glue together his fractious coalition of the right and far right.
The deal exposes Netanyahu on all of those fronts, which explains why he has been uncomfortable with being tied to it.
Read more:
The armed wing of Hamas has claimed an Israeli strike that followed the announcement of a ceasefire deal the previous day targeted a place where a female hostage was being held.
The Guardian could not verify the claim and the al-Qassam Brigades spokesman, Abu Ubaida, did not disclose the fate of the hostage.
UK MPs were unusually united in their comments on the Middle East today, as MPs from both sides welcomed the proposed ceasefire in Gaza and urged the Israelis to accept it.
David Lammy, the foreign secretary, said:
It is critical that there is final approval of this agreement, and as the Israeli cabinet meets, I urge them to back this deal.
Now is not the time for any backtracking.
Tory MPs agreed, with several encouraging the foreign secretary to continue putting pressure on the Israelis to abide by the agreement.
Oliver Dowden, the former Conservative deputy prime minister, said:
Can I urge the foreign secretary to use all the diplomatic efforts of His Majesty’s government... to secure agreement from the Israeli cabinet?
People’s celebrations in Gaza over the ceasefire announcement have been cut short by heavy waves of air strikes, Hani Mahmoud reports from Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip for Al Jazeera.
He writes for the news network, which has been banned from operating in Israel, that “At least 20 children and 25 women are among the dead. Those who survived 15 months of war were hoping they would witness the ceasefire, but in the last minutes, we’ve seen many lose their lives.”
At least 77 people are reported to have been killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza since the announcement of a ceasefire deal – which is still not formally agreed – on Wednesday afternoon.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
Kirby: US is 'confident' ceasefire issues can be resolved for planned Sunday start
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby has told NBC News that the US is “confident” that issues holding up the confirmation of a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas can be resolved in time for it to start as planned on Sunday.
Speaking on the NBC Today program, Kirby said:
We’re going to get there. We’re aware of these issues that the prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] has raised today, this afternoon, their time, and we’re working through that.
Our team on the ground is actually working with him and his team to iron all this out and flatten it and get it moving forward.
US representatives are still believed to be actively involved with talks in Doha on the final details needed to get the deal over the line. Kirby continued:
This has got to get approved by the Israeli government. Netanyahu knows that. He’s working through that process, but we’re confident that we will be able to solve these last-minute issues and get it moving, and that this ceasefire can take place starting on Sunday.
Asked about the timing of the move, just days before Donald Trump takes office for the second time in Washington DC, Kirby said “there’s plenty of credit to go around” and that Trump “certainly helped”, but pointed out that another significant factor was that “Hamas is weaker now and more willing to make a deal.”
Israel’s health ministry has published a protocol for handling returned hostages, which it says has been updated and differs “significantly” from the one used during the last release of captives from Gaza in November 2023.
Six hospitals have been designated for the initial return of hostages, with a minimum stay of four days recommended.
Dr Hagar Mizrahi, head of the health ministry’s general medicine division, said that some previously released hostages regretted leaving earlier than the recommended stay.
Abductees will be tested for the presence of sexually transmitted diseases, and women will be provided with pregnancy tests. There is also concern about “Refeeding syndrome” – where people who have been experiencing starvation conditions consume food too quickly once it becomes available.
The ministry is also cautioning families against posting social media updates from inside hospitals.
Hebrew media outlet Ynet is carrying a quote from the aunt of hostage Bar Kuperstein about the delay to the confirmation that Israel and Hamas have come to a ceasefire and hostage release agreement.
Ora Rubinstein said:
We don’t receive any briefing, only general messages from the administration saying that Hamas is causing the delay. In my opinion, it’s because of problems in our coalition, with Bezalel Smotrich.
We don’t know what’s going to happen, we’re not told anything, always keeping us informed is at the bottom of the priority list.
The only thing we know is that Benjamin Netanyahu said they’re not even talking about the second phase. I heard Smotrich say that he only agrees to the first phase and then a renewal of war. What war? The one where soldiers are just killed?
Kuperstein was a member of staff at the Nova music festival who was seized and abducted into Gaza on 7 October 2023.
Israeli media reports that finance minister Smotrich’s far-right Religious Zionism party has said it will only remain in Netanyahu’s coalition with a guarantee that Israel will return to fighting Hamas after the hostages are released.
ActionAid UK says it is devastated by the Israeli killing of a staff member at one of the charity’s partner hospitals in Gaza on Wednesday, just hours before it was announced that Israel and Hamas were on the verge of agreeing a ceasefire.
It says Fatin Shaqoura-Salha, the chief of nursing staff at Al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat, run by ActionAid’s partner Al-Awda, was killed alongside her husband and their children when their home was struck by the Israeli military on Wednesday.
It quotes Tasneem, who works with an ActionAid partner organisation Palestinian NGOs Network, saying they “can’t fathom how those who are now killed were, just hours ago, clinging to hope awaiting the long overdue news of a ceasefire. Thousands lost their lives and dreams because the ceasefire did not come for over 15 months. With every minute of delay, entire families are being erased.”
UK prime minister Keir Starmer said the ceasefire agreement must clear the path for much-needed humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.
Speaking on a visit to Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Starmer said the deal will be a “huge relief” to both the hostages and their families as well as the Palestinians after 15 months of war.
“This must be used to get desperately needed aid in, at scale and at speed,” he added.
Starmer also talked about his hopes that the deal is “enduring” and will lead to a “lasting peace” that involves a two-state solution, the BBC reports.
The EU said Thursday it would deliver €120m ($123m) in new aid for war-torn Gaza, a day after the announcement of a ceasefire and hostage release deal, AFP reports.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said the new package brought the EU’s humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian territory to more than €450m since 2023.
The EU has also conducted flights that delivered over 3,800 tonnes of aid.
“Today we are also adopting a package of 120 million euros for Gaza to address the ongoing humanitarian crisis there,” EU spokesperson Eva Hrncirova told reporters.
The package will include food, healthcare and shelter assistance and support to allow access to clean water, the commission added in a statement.
Updated
Iran’s ministry of foreign affairs congratulated the “resilient people of Palestine” on the ceasefire agreement in a statement.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran congratulates the resilient people of #Palestine as well as all supporters of the resistance in the region and the world on the historic victory achieved through the Gaza ceasefire agreement...” it said.
Germany’s Lufthansa Group is set to resume flights to and from Tel Aviv in Israel from 1 February and Wizz Air restarted its London to Tel Aviv route on Thursday, the companies said following the ceasefire agreement, Reuters reports.
Wizz Air also resumed flights to Amman, Jordan starting on Thursday from London Luton airport.
Lufthansa Group carriers Brussels Airlines, Eurowings, Austrian Airlines and Swiss were included in Lufthansa’s decision to resume flights to Tel Aviv.
Ryanair said it was hoping to run a full summer schedule to and from Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv in an interview with Reuters last week, before the ceasefire deal was announced.
In the wake of the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, Turkish Airlines said it would start flights to Damascus, the Syrian capital, on 23 January, with three flights per week.
But airlines remain cautious and watchful before re-entering the region in full. Air France-KLM said its operations to and from Tel Aviv remain suspended until Jan. 24, while its flights between Paris and Beirut will be suspended until Jan. 31.
The suspension of Lufthansa flights to and from Tehran up to and including 14 February remains in place and the airline will not fly to Beirut in Lebanon up to and including 28 February, it said.
Updated
The Times of Israel has published what it claims is the text of the agreement between Israel and Hamas.
It states that the agreement consists of Appendix I, which it says supplements the previously published proposed agreement framework of 27 May 2024.
The Times of Israel adds that:
Several additional appendixes that include maps and other details outlining the parameters of the deal were not included in copy of the text obtained by The Times of Israel, whose authenticity was confirmed by an Arab diplomat familiar with the negotiations.
The Guardian has not independently seen or verified the document. The Times of Israel report can be read here.
It sets out in eight sections where Israeli troops will withdraw to, the ratio of Palestinian detainees to be released per different category of hostage, the exit of wounded people through and the operation of the Rafah crossing, Israel withdrawing from the Philadelphi corridor within 50 days, and the provision of further humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reports Israeli machine gun fire and the movement of tanks in Maroun al-Ras in the south of the country.
In November 2024 Israel and Lebanon agreed a ceasefire deal which included a 60-day staged withdrawal of IDF troops from inside Lebanon, which it invaded in October 2024.
The Maroun al-Ras municipality is adjacent to the UN-drawn blue line that has separated Lebanon and Israel since 2000.
Israeli media reports that the far-right Religious Zionism party has said it will only remain in Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government if the prime minister will agree to “Israel’s return to the war to destroy Hamas” after phase one of the ceasefire and hostage release deal. The party is chaired by finance minister Bezalel Smotrich.
More details soon …
Updated
The Times of Israel reports it has learned that “Mossad chief David Barnea and the Israeli negotiating team are still in Doha finalizing the details of the ceasefire-hostage release deal.”
Benjamin Netanyahu’s office earlier issued a statement that he would not convene the Israeli security cabinet to approve the deal until the negotiating team has returned from Qatar.
The Hamas-led health authority in Gaza has issued updated casualty figures for the conflict. Reuters reports it stated at least 46,788 Palestinians have been killed and a further 110,453 wounded by Israel’s military offensive.
Those numbers record 81 killed and 188 injured in the past 24 hours.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
At least 70 Palestinians killed by Israeli strikes amid ceasefire deal delay
Israel airstrikes killed at least 70 more people in Gaza overnight and during Thursday, Reuters reports residents and authorities in the territory said, hours after a prospective ceasefire and hostage release deal was announced to bring an end to 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas which has devastated the Gaza Strip and triggered a humanitarian crisis.
The deal is yet to be formally agreed, with Israel’s security cabinet delaying a planned Thursday morning meeting. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said “Hamas reneges on parts of the agreement reached with the mediators and Israel in an effort to extort last minute concessions. The Israeli cabinet will not convene until the mediators notify Israel that Hamas has accepted all elements of the agreement.”
Hamas has said it is committed to the ceasefire agreement announced by mediators on Wednesday, with Reuters citing senior group official Izzat el-Reshiq making the comment on Thursday morning.
Protests were staged on Thursday morning in Jerusalem opposing the deal, with the families of Israeli soldiers killed during the conflict placing mock coffins draped in Israeli flags in the street.
With 98 Israeli hostages remaining in Gaza, phase one of the deal entails the release of 33 of them, including all women, children and men over 50.
An earlier report by Israel’s military of a falling projectile at a kibbutz close to the border with the Gaza Strip was later determined to be a false identification.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
Israel’s military has announced that yesterday ten service personnel were wounded “as a result of an explosion of weapons in a military training base in southern Israel.”
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that Israeli security forces have made at least 22 arrests inside the Israeli-occupied West Bank since last night.
Families of Israeli soldiers who have been killed during the war since the surprise Hamas attack inside southern Israel on 7 October 2023 have gathered in Jerusalam to stage a protest against any ceasefire deal, setting up an installation of mock coffins draped in Israeli flags.
The IDF’s official figures state that “Since the beginning of ground operations in the Gaza Strip on 27 October, 2023, 405 soldiers have fallen in combat.”
Israeli authorities have named 840 soldiers and 69 police officers in total who have been killed in conflict including the 7 October attack itself.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images from Gaza, where Palestinian news sources reports that at least 50 people have been killed since dawn by Israeli airstrikes.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
Updated
Israel’s military has said that its investigation into the fallen projectile it reported earlier in Nir Am, close to the Gaza Strip, has determined it to be “a false identification.”
Hamas has said it is committed to the ceasefire agreement announced on Wednesday
Hamas has said it is committed to the ceasefire agreement announced by mediators on Wednesday.
Reuters cited senior group official Izzat el-Reshiq making the comment on Thursday morning.
The report comes a few minutes after the office of Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that it had cancelled the planned Israeli security cabinet meeting to approve the deal, accusing Hamas of reneging “on parts of the agreement reached with the mediators and Israel in an effort to extort last minute concessions.”
Under the terms of the agreement a first batch of 33 hostages is expected to be released on Sunday in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails, and wounded people in Gaza will be allowed to leave for medical treatment.
Netanyahu’s office says cabinet won’t meet to approve ceasefire deal until Hamas backs down on 'last minute concessions'
Israel’s security cabinet has delayed a planned meeting to approve a ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas in Gaza, with Benjamin Netanyahu’s office accusing Hamas of attempting to obtain ‘last minute concessions’ on some aspects of the deal.
Reuters quotes Netanyahu’s office saying “Hamas reneges on parts of the agreement reached with the mediators and Israel in an effort to extort last minute concessions. The Israeli cabinet will not convene until the mediators notify Israel that Hamas has accepted all elements of the agreement.”
Originally scheduled for 11am (9am GMT), the Jerusalem Post had earlier reported the security cabinet delay had been caused because “the hostage deal delegation hasn’t finished its work in Qatar and returned to Israel.”
It reported “When the delegation returns, the security cabinet will convene.”
More details soon …
A group of Israelis have been protesting in Jerusalem against the prospect of a ceasefire and hostage release deal. Police intervened, dragging at least one person away from the scene.
Haaretz reports that MK Zvi Succot, who represents the Religious Zionism party led by finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, has said there is “a high likelihood” the party will quit Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government if a deal with Hamas is approved.
It quotes him speaking on Israeli public radio, saying:
If the deal leads to halting the war without achieving its objectives, there is no point in continuing our partnership in the government.
We are in discussions with the prime minister to secure guarantees that the war will continue.
There is nothing we could accept, neither budgets nor positions, not even a shift in the West Bank where we are dismantling the Palestinian state, that outweighs this issue.
Funerals continue to take place in the Gaza Strip for people killed by Israeli strikes since the announcement was made that Israel and Hamas had agreed to a ceasefire and hostage release deal, including for journalist Ahmad Vasshah at Nasser hospital in Deir al-Balah.
The Committee to Project Journalists (CPJ) has recorded at least 165 journalists and media workers killed in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, and Lebanon since 7 October 2023. It states this makes it “the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.”
Other funerals have been taking place at the Al-Ahli Baptist hospital. At least 25 people have been reported killed by Israeli strikes since dawn. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that 25 people have been killed by Israeli strikes inside Gaza since dawn.
Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir al-Balah for Al Jazeera described the situation on the ground as “a mix of cautious relief, hope and lingering grief.”
Palestinians understand that the deal will take effect Sunday. It means we still have 72 hours expected to be filled with air strikes and escalation.
Since the early hours of this morning, we saw Israeli drones and fighter jets breaking the sound barrier and producing sonic booms that terrified everyone on the ground.
Civilians are still absolutely afraid regarding the expansion of the scale of attacks in the Gaza Strip.
Al Jazeera has been banned from operating inside Israel by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Here is a round-up of some more reaction from world leaders:
Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, who has been one of the most outspoken European critics of Israel’s war tactics, welcomed the news, saying: “It must bring an end to the conflict, allow the terrible humanitarian situation in Gaza to be dealt with, and lead to the release of all the hostages.”
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati said the deal “ends a bloody chapter in the history of the Palestinian people, who have endured immense suffering due to Israeli aggression.” He also expressed hope for a sustainable ceasefire.
The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and his foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said all parties must respect the terms of the deal and that it “must mark the beginning of a new chapter for the Israeli and Palestinian people”.
The UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, said he was “hugely relieved by the news”, adding that it as “imperative that it now holds” and urging all parties and countries with influence to “ensure the success of next stages”.
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said the deal “marks a significant step toward alleviating the humanitarian crisis and stabilising the situation”. Japan will support improving the humanitarian situation, fostering reconstruction, and supporting governance in Gaza, Hayashi said.
Within the last 30 minutes Israel’s military has stated that it is investigating a fallen projectile after sirens sounded in Nir Am, a kibbutz located near Sderot and very close to Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip.
Israel security cabinet to meet to approve ceasefire deal after agreement with Hamas announced
Israel’s security cabinet will meet at 11am local time (9am GMT) on Thursday to approve a ceasefire deal, local media reported. The Israeli government will vote on the deal on Thursday, with a majority of ministers expected to approve the deal, a government official told Reuters.
Israel continued its strikes on Gaza hours before the vote, residents and authorities in the Palestinian territory have said, with dozens of people killed since the mooted ceasefire was announced on Wednesday.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with both US President Joe Biden and the incoming Donald Trump on Wednesday, his office said, thanking them for their help securing the agreement but also cautioning that “final details” were still being hammered out. Netanyahu also said early on Thursday that Hamas has backtracked on an earlier understanding of the ceasefire agreement, possibly indicating that obstacles remain to implementing the deal.
Both Biden and Trump were quick to claim credit for the accord. Biden opened his final address to the nation by referencing the deal. “This plan was developed and negotiated by my team and will be largely implemented by the incoming administration,” he said. Trump said the “epic” agreement could have only happened as a result of his “historic” election victory.
The Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal, which is set to be begin on Sunday and will last 42 days, will see the exchange of hostages detained by Hamas and Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons.
Other aspects of the deal include the return of Palestinians, who have been forcibly displaced by Israeli forces, to their homes across the Gaza Strip. The deal will also see the facilitation of travel of people wounded by Israeli attacks and sick people in order to receive treatment, as well as the positioning of Israeli forces across the Gaza border.
Biden confirmed that Americans will be part of the hostage release. “This deal will halt the fighting in Gaza, surge much needed-humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, and reunite the hostages with their families after more than 15 months in captivity,” Biden said.
Updated
Iran Guards hail Gaza ceasefire as 'victory’ for Palestinians
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Thursday hailed a ceasefire deal in Gaza between Israel and the Hamas militant group as a “victory” for Palestinians and a “defeat” for Israel, AFP reports.
“The end of the war and the imposition of a ceasefire … is a clear victory and a great victory for Palestine and a bigger defeat for the monstrous Zionist regime,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement.
Rami Khouri, a distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut, said that it was almost comical to see Biden and Trump try to outdo each other and claim credit for the ceasefire deal.
“Even in their announcements today they don’t really talk about the Palestinians as real people,” Khouri told Al Jazeera.
“It’s about an assertion of American might and the fact the United States feels it can dictate what will happen in the region,” he said.
Khouri also noted that Israel’s military had killed dozens on Wednesday despite the ceasefire announcement and they will “keep killing people until Sunday”.
“They did the same thing in Lebanon before every ceasefire,” he said.
Updated
Analysis: Biden or Trump – who should claim credit for the Gaza ceasefire deal?
The question yelled at Joe Biden by a reporter was unapologetically blunt: “Who do you think deserves credit for this Mr. President: you or [Donald] Trump?”
Biden had just finished announcing what he presented as his signature foreign policy achievement – a ceasefire-for-hostages deal between Israel and Hamas to halt the bloody war in Gaza that has left 46,000 Palestinians and 1,700 Israelis dead. He wasn’t in the mood for that debate.
“Is that a joke?” the president asked and then walked away flanked by vice-president Kamala Harris and secretary of state Antony Blinken.
Success has many fathers. When the ceasefire in Gaza was finally announced on Thursday, they all stood up to take the credit.
Biden in a press conference said that the ceasefire was “developed and negotiated by my team and will be largely implemented by the incoming administration.” As he praised his diplomats, he grew wistful: “The Bible says blessed are the peacemakers. Many peacemakers helped make this deal happen.”
But there was little public soul-searching about why the plan he had proposed in May – the “exact” same plan as Biden reminded reporters – was finally accepted only days before Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Leaders around the world have welcomed the news of an accord and have urged both sides to seize the moment to bring an end to the conflict and the accompanying humanitarian crisis.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said member states stood ready to support the implementation of the deal and “scale up the delivery of sustained humanitarian relief to the countless Palestinians who continue to suffer”. It was “imperative” that the ceasefire removed “the significant security and political obstacles to delivering aid across Gaza”, he added.
The US president, Joe Biden, said the Palestinian people had “gone through hell”, adding: “Too many innocent people have died. Too many communities have been destroyed. Under this deal, the people of Gaza can finally recover and rebuild.”
The US president-elect, Donald Trump, said in a post on his Truth Social website: “This epic ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our historic victory in November … I am thrilled American and Israeli hostages will be returning home to be reunited with their families and loved ones.”
The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, described the deal as “the long-overdue news that the Israeli and Palestinian people have desperately been waiting for”.
Once humanitarian aid had reached those in need in Gaza, Starmer added, “our attention must turn to how we secure a permanently better future for the Israeli and Palestinian people – grounded in a two-state solution that will guarantee security and stability for Israel, alongside a sovereign and viable Palestine state”.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said the agreement would reunite hostages with their loved ones and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.
“This brings hope to an entire region, where people have endured immense suffering for far too long,” she said. “Both parties must fully implement this agreement, as a stepping stone toward lasting stability in the region and a diplomatic resolution of the conflict.”
Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, expressed hope that the deal would “[open] the door to a permanent end to the war and to the improvement of the poor humanitarian situation in Gaza”. He said the agreement needed to be “implemented to the letter” and all the hostages released.
Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the president of Egypt, which has played a pivotal role in the negotiations, hailed the strenuous efforts made by his country, saying it would “always remain faithful to its covenant, a supporter of just peace, a loyal partner in achieving it, and a defender of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people”.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has been a vocal critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza, said: “We respectfully salute the heroic people and brave sons of Gaza who courageously defended their land and freedom against Israel’s unlawful and inhumane attacks.”
Reports of further deadly attacks on Gaza continue to filter through. The Israeli military has bombed an apartment building near the Shaabiya intersection in the Daraj neighbourhood in the centre of Gaza City, killing at least four people, the Shehab news agency and the Palestinian Information Center report, according to Al Jazeera.
The IDF has yet to comment.
What we know so far
Key mediator Qatar said that 33 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza would be released in the first stage of a ceasefire deal aimed at ending the war in the Palestinian territory.
Israel earlier said it would release about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in the first stage of a Gaza truce agreement, Israeli and Palestinian sources reported Tuesday.
Read on for a handy primer of the key details of the expected initial phase of the deal according to Qatari, US, Israeli and Palestinian officials and media reports:
Significant progress was made on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal once the administrations of Joe Biden and Donald Trump began working hand in hand to make the case for urgency, outgoing US ambassador to Israel Jack Lew has told Reuters.
Lew’s 15 months as President Biden’s envoy overlapped with a war that began on 7 October 2023 with a Palestinian Hamas attack on Israel followed by an Israeli assault on Gaza. He spoke on Tuesday before a deal was reached.
Lew, 69, will hand over the ambassador’s role to Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor, when Trump returns to the White House on Monday.
A Washington veteran and a Democrat, Lew said the bipartisan U.S. cooperation began right after the Republican Trump’s election as president two months ago. Lew said U.S. national interests were best served by what he called a “warm handoff” and a constructive transition.
“I think a lot of progress has been made. The fact that you have an outgoing and an incoming administration that have worked hand in hand to make the case for urgency, I think, has been noticed by all parties,” Lew said.
Lew credited Biden’s significant time commitment to the deal as his term neared an end and welcomed the engagement of Trump, who had said there would be “hell to pay” unless Hamas freed the hostages before he takes over from Biden on 20 January.
“The fact that he (Biden) and the president-elect use different language in this case may create constructive tension because they have the same goal, and he (Trump) has used language that makes people say, ‘What’s going to happen next?’ If we were working at cross-purposes, it would be perhaps a different situation. But we’re not. There’s no daylight between what we’re trying to accomplish,” Lew said.
It is only if the perspective is broadened away from Gaza that Netanyahu and the Israeli military can claim, by deciding to broaden the war with intensified attacks on Hezbollah and Iranian targets, that they changed its course and character. The chain of events that led to the annihilation of the Hezbollah leadership in Lebanon – and then to the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and so to Iran’s loss of its crown jewel – may be sketchy, but it is clearly discernible.
Indeed, the weakening of Iran is probably the biggest regional impact of the war in Gaza. Biden had a point this week in claiming that, all told, Iran “is weaker than it has been for decades”. He elaborated: “Iran’s air defences are in shambles. Their main proxy, Hezbollah, is badly wounded, and as we tested Iran’s willingness to revive the nuclear deal, we kept the pressure with sanctions. Now Iran’s economy is in desperate straits.” A 35-year tack to build a defence strategy around a proxy army had been eviscerated in a matter of months.
The change has had an accelerator effect on Tehran’s foreign-policy elite. Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian reformist president, and his strategic adviser, Javad Zarif, are placing numerous olive branches at Trump’s feet.
The fissiparous nature of Iranian internal politics makes it hard for Iran to deliver a consistent message to the west, however, and at the moment there are not many diplomats in France, UK or Germany yet convinced by Iran’s offer to negotiate a new nuclear deal. Iran has a reputation for buying time by offering fruitless talks. Moreover, Trump’s top team is deeply hostile to Iran.
In Lebanon, two years of paralysis have ended and a new, elected leadership will listen to Iran-backed Hezbollah, but not be beholden to it.
But the new prime minister, Nawaf Salam, is the former president of the international court of justice and fresh from delivering the landmark legal verdict that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is illegal and must end within a year. He will be a standing reminder that Israel has unfinished business in front of the international courts.
Patrick Wintour is the Guardian’s diplomatic editor
Security for Israel, secretary of state Antony Blinken argued, had to include a credible political horizon for the Palestinians, or else Hamas “or something equally abhorrent” will “grow back”. He said the country “must abandon the myth they can carry out de facto annexation, without cost and consequence to Israel’s democracy, to its standing, to its security”. Yet, he complained, “Israel’s government has systematically undermined the capacity and legitimacy of the only viable alternative to Hamas: the Palestinian Authority”.
If Israel wanted the prize of greater security, he said, that lay through forging greater integration across the region, specifically through normalisation with Saudi Arabia. He said that was ready to go, but only if Palestinians were allowed to live in a state of their own, and not as “a non-people”.
Trump’s return to the White House may have helped pressure Benjamin Netanyahu into a ceasefire, but not to a particular peace. The incoming US president is unlikely to pick up Blinken’s plan for a reformed and UN-monitored Palestinian Authority (PA) to oversee governance of a unified Gaza and West Bank. Israel for its part will risk a bigger vacuum by acting on its commitment not to co-operate with Unrwa, the UN agency for the Palestinians, and other NGOs.
Nor is there any certainty that Palestine will have the quality of leadership required to take sole administrative charge of Gaza. The PA, led by the ageing Mahmoud Abbas, is increasingly reviled on the West Bank and has failed to bury its differences with Hamas in talks in Moscow, Beijing and Cairo.
Israeli cabinet to vote on Gaza ceasefire deal today – reports
Israel’s cabinet is expected to meet Thursday to approve a ceasefire and hostage-release deal with Hamas, Israeli media reported, a day after mediators announced an agreement they hope will lead to a permanent end to the Gaza war.
The truce would take effect on Sunday and involve the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, after which the terms of a broader peace deal would be finalised, the prime minister of mediator Qatar said Wednesday.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with both US President Joe Biden and the incoming Donald Trump on Wednesday, his office said, thanking them for their help securing the agreement but also cautioning that “final details” were still being hammered out.
Netanyahu also said early on Thursday that Hamas has backtracked on an earlier understanding of the ceasefire agreement, possibly indicating that obstacles remain to implementing the deal.
President Isaac Herzog, who holds a largely ceremonial role, said the deal was the “right move”.
Israeli media reported that the cabinet was set to vote on the ceasefire agreement on Thursday morning, even though two of Netanyahu’s ministers have publicly opposed it, AFP reports.
Far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said the agreement was a “bad and dangerous deal for the security of the State of Israel” while national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir said he opposed the “disastrous deal”.
Gaza rescuers say 7 dead in latest Israeli strikes
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Thursday that at least seven people had been killed in fresh Israeli strikes in the Palestinian territory, hours before Israel’s cabinet was set to vote on a ceasefire deal that would take effect on Sunday.
“Our crew retrieved 5 dead and more than 10 injured from under the rubble of a house … that was bombed by the Israeli army in the Al-Rimal area west of Gaza City,” the agency said in a statement, according to AFP.
It added it had retrieved the bodies of two more people killed in a strike at “the Al-Sha’biya intersection in the center of Gaza City”.
The Israeli military has yet to comment on the attacks reported after the ceasefire deal was announced.
Updated
There may be no winners in war, but history suggests combatants are often eager to convince the world otherwise.
The ending of the 15-month conflict in Gaza may prove an exception. The sacrifice has been so great, the misery so complete, and the ultimate future for Gaza so uncertain that few can claim with certainty that this was all worthwhile, or likely to benefit Israel’s security in the long term. The damage to Israel’s reputation may last decades.
In their final interviews and speeches as they prepared to leave office, it was noticeable the key foreign policy figures in the Biden administration often looked beyond Gaza, as western diplomats have turned to what could be the momentous consequences of the war for the wider Middle East.
Even Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden’s outgoing national security adviser, was left uncertain. “What is the outcome of all of this? I think it is too early to predict. Even when good things happen, there are bad things around the corner. That’s true across foreign policy. It’s especially true in the Middle East,” he said.
Similarly, Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, argued that often in the Middle East, change is not what it appears. He saw at best “a historic window of opportunity”. In every country sucked into the Israel-Gaza war – Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Iraq – and in Israel itself, the balance of forces has been changed by the war, but not irreversibly transformed.
That is true of Gaza itself, where even if a full ceasefire holds, the future remains deliberately clouded. Blinken implicitly criticised this in his Atlantic Council speech this week, when he said he recognised the need for Israel’s war, but could not support what may be its plan for peace.
Read on below:
Israel intensifies attacks on Gaza after ceasefire announced
Israel intensified strikes on Gaza hours after a ceasefire and hostage release deal was announced, residents and authorities in the Palestinian enclave have said, with dozens of people killed.
Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif, in northern Gaza, said it had been a “terrifying night”. In a post on X he wrote,
The pace of bombing has increased dramatically in recent hours, and with it the number of martyrs and wounded has increased to an unprecedented level.
He filmed himself at a makeshift morgue with bodies in the background, including those of several small children. “An hour ago, I was documenting the joy of the people of Gaza at the news of the ceasefire, but the Israeli occupation, as usual, continues to commit massacres,” he said.
Another Al Jazeera reporter Hossam Shabat, also reporting from northern Gaza, reported “intensive raids”, adding, “It’s as if we are living the first days of the Israeli aggression”.
Medics cited by Reuters said 32 people were killed late on Wednesday. Strikes continued into Thursday destroying houses in Rafah in southern Gaza, Nuseirat in central Gaza and in northern Gaza, residents said.
Israel’s military made no immediate comment and there were no reports of Hamas attacks on Israel after the ceasefire announcement.
In the occupied West Bank, where Israel has also intensified its attacks since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack, six Palestinians were killed and another two critically injured on Wednesday evening by an Israeli airstrike on the Jenin refugee camp, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Updated
Hamas and Israel have agreed to a ceasefire deal, pausing the war in Gaza and designed to broker an end to the brutal 15-month conflict. The agreement is set to be officially accepted by Israel after a cabinet meeting on Thursday.
The announcement on Wednesday night from Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, was made after weeks of negotiations in the Qatari capital, Doha. There were intensified efforts in recent days to hammer out the final details after increased pressure on Israel to reach a deal from the US president-elect, Donald Trump, which Sheikh Mohammed acknowledged in his media conference.
“The two belligerents in the Gaza Strip have reached a deal on the prisoner and the hostage swap, and [the mediators] announce a ceasefire in the hopes of reaching a permanent ceasefire between the two sides,” he said.
“Both parties should commit totally to all three phrases [of the agreement] to steer away from further bloodshed and steer away escalation in the region.” Sheikh Mohammed added: “We hope this will be the end of a dark chapter of war.”
Immediately afterwards, the US president, Joe Biden, said that his administration negotiated the deal but that Trump’s team will soon be charged with making sure it is implemented. The incoming Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, joined the White House’s Middle East adviser Brett McGurk as the talks came to fruition in Doha, Biden said.
“For the past few days, we have been speaking as one team,” Biden said.
Late on Wednesday, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke separately to Biden and Trump to thank them for helping to secure the deal, his office said.
“The prime minister thanked president-elect Trump for his help in advancing the release of the hostages,” Netanyahu’s office said in a first acknowledgment of a deal, adding that the two agreed to meet “soon” in Washington. The statement said Netanyahu then spoke with Biden.
Opening summary
Israel continued strikes on Gaza hours after a ceasefire and hostage release deal was announced, residents and authorities in the Palestinian territory said, as mediators sought to quell fighting ahead of the truce’s start on Sunday.
Israel’s military made no immediate comment and there were no reports of Hamas attacks on Israel after the ceasefire announcement.
The complex ceasefire accord between Israel and militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, emerged on Wednesday after months of mediation by Qatar, Egypt and the US, and 15 months of bloodshed that devastated the coastal territory and inflamed the Middle East.
The deal outlines a six-week initial ceasefire with the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, where tens of thousands have been killed. Hostages taken by Hamas would be freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Donald Trump and Joe Biden for “advancing” the ceasefire agreement, but did not explicitly say whether he has accepted it, saying he would issue a formal response only “after the final details of the agreement, which are currently being worked on, are completed.”
The accord was expected to win approval despite opposition from some hardliners in Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government.
While people celebrated the pact in Gaza and Israel, Israel’s military escalated attacks after the announcement, the Palestinian civil emergency service and residents said.
Heavy Israeli bombardment, especially in Gaza City, killed 32 people late on Wednesday, medics said. The strikes continued early on Thursday and destroyed houses in Rafah in southern Gaza, Nuseirat in central Gaza and in northern Gaza, residents said.
In other developments:
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, thanked US president-elect Donald Trump and President Joe Biden for their “assistance” in advancing the ceasefire and hostages release deal. In a series of posts on X, Netanyahu’s office said he spoke this evening with Trump and thanked him “for helping Israel bring an end to the suffering of dozens of hostages and their families.” Netanyahu then spoke with Biden and thanked him for his assistance in advancing the hostages deal.
Israel’s security cabinet will meet at 11am local time (9am GMT) on Thursday to approve the deal, local media reported. The Israeli government will vote on the deal on Thursday, with a majority of ministers expected to approve the deal, a government official told Reuters.
Both Biden and Trump were quick to claim credit. Biden opened his final address to the nation by referencing the deal. “This plan was developed and negotiated by my team and will be largely implemented by the incoming administration,” he said. Trump said the “epic” agreement could have only happened as a result of his “historic” election victory.
The UN rights chief, Volker Türk, welcomed news of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, saying it held he promise of “huge relief after so much unbearable pain and misery”.
The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, has issued a statement calling the news of a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal “long overdue” and urging a “huge surge” in humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory. “After months of devastating bloodshed and countless lives lost, this is the long-overdue news that the Israeli and Palestinian people have desperately been waiting for,” he said.
The Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal, which is set to be begin on Sunday and will last 42 days, will see the exchange of hostages detained by Hamas and Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons.
Other aspects of the deal include the return of Palestinians, who have been forcibly displaced by Israeli forces, to their homes across the Gaza Strip. The deal will also see the facilitation of travel of people wounded by Israeli attacks and sick people in order to receive treatment, as well as the positioning of Israeli forces across the Gaza border.
Biden confirmed that Americans will be part of the hostage release. “This deal will halt the fighting in Gaza, surge much needed-humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, and reunite the hostages with their families after more than 15 months in captivity,” Biden said.
Egypt is “preparing to bring in the largest possible amount of aid to the Gaza Strip,” according to state media reports. Coordination was under way to “open the Palestinian Rafah crossing to allow the entry of international aid” into Gaza, Egyptian state media reported.
