Netanyahu delays Israel-Hamas ceasefire vote: NPR

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the cabinet meeting scheduled to vote Thursday on the peace deal between Israel and Hamas had been delayed, dealing a blow to hopes for a ceasefire after 15 months of fighting would come into effect on Sunday.

Netanyahu said the meeting would only take place after Hamas renounced its demands for what he called “last minute concessions,” adding in a statement that “Hamas is reneging on parts of the agreement reached with the mediators.

He said that until the mediators notified Israel that “all elements of the agreement” had been accepted, the cabinet meeting would not take place. He did not specify which elements of the agreement Hamas had returned to.

But in an interview with Al-Arabi television, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Netanyahu’s claims that Hamas was withdrawing parts of the ceasefire agreement were baseless.

Another member of Hamas’s political wing, Izzat al-Rishq, said in a statement that Hamas was “committed to the ceasefire agreement announced by the mediators.”

Netanyahu had called President Biden and President-elect Donald Trump to thank them for their help in reaching a deal Wednesday evening. But he has simultaneously faced significant domestic political pressure from right-wing members of his coalition government, who have long opposed any kind of deal with Hamas – even if it would lead to the return of dozens of ‘Israelis held captive inside Gaza since October 2023.

Several coalition members have repeatedly threatened to abandon the coalition if a deal is finalized – a move that would likely result in the dissolution of Netanyahu’s current government.

But several more moderate members of Netanyahu’s cabinet said publicly on Wednesday that all their fellow ministers should vote for the deal, as should the country’s President, Isaac Herzog.

In the hours after US and Qatari officials announced the deal, 73 people were killed by Israeli forces and more than 230 injured, according to Hamas-controlled emergency relief authorities in Gaza. airstrikes continuing into Thursday morning.

The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel from Gaza, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages in Gaza.

The war has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, who said the majority were women and children. The Israeli army says 405 of its soldiers have been killed in fighting since it invaded Gaza.