Bethan McKernan, Lorenzo Tondo & Andrew Roth
The Guardian / January 17, 2025
Netanyahu’s office says cabinet will convene on Friday amid concerns the delay could slow start of truce.
Jerusalem/Washington – Israel’s security cabinet will meet on Friday after negotiators reached a deal for the release of hostages as part of a Gaza ceasefire with Hamas, the office of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said.
Israeli warplanes kept up intense strikes in Gaza, and Palestinian authorities said late on Thursday that at least 86 people had been killed on the day after the truce was announced. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had attacked approximately 50 targets throughout Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours.
Israel delayed meetings expected on Thursday to vote on the pact, with longstanding divisions apparent among ministers. Netanyahu said there would be no meeting until “Hamas accepts all elements of the agreement”, in a move that threatened to derail months of work to end the 15-month conflict.
The unexpected delay sparked fears that last-minute disagreements could still scuttle the deal but in the early hours of Friday, Netanyahu’s office suggested approval was imminent, with the security cabinet due to meet that morning.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was informed by the negotiating team that agreements have been reached on a deal to release the hostages,” his office said.
A meeting of the full cabinet would then approve the deal, but it was not immediately clear if that would be on Friday or Saturday or if there would be a delay to the expected start of the ceasefire on Sunday.
The White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said Washington believed the agreement was on track with a ceasefire to proceed as soon as late this weekend.
Friday’s Israeli statement said hostages’ families had been informed and preparations begun to receive the 33 people due to be released in the first six-week phase of the deal.
A group representing the families had earlier urged Netanyahu to move forward quickly. “For the 98 hostages, each night is another night of terrible nightmare. Do not delay their return even for one more night,” it said in a statement late on Thursday.
Reports in the Israeli media say Hamas is expected to release the names of the hostages to be freed only on the day of their release. Israel has said their names will be made public after the hostages have been handed over to the IDF.
US officials said the last-minute dispute in the negotiations was over the identities of some prisoners Hamas wanted released and envoys of the US president, Joe Biden, and president-elect, Donald Trump, had been in Doha with Egyptian and Qatari mediators working to resolve it.
Trump said on Thursday that a ceasefire “better be done before I take the oath of office” next week.
In the first stage, which is to last 42 days, Hamas has agreed to release 33 hostages, including children, women – including female soldiers – and those aged over 50. In exchange, Israel would release 50 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons for every female Israeli soldier released by Hamas, and 30 for other hostages.
In a controversial move on Friday, the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, announced his decision to free West Bank settlers held without charge under administrative detention ahead of the release of Palestinian prisoners. Katz had previously announced an end to new administrative detention orders for settlers in November.
“In light of the expected release of terrorists from Judea and Samaria as part of the hostage release deal, I have decided to release the settlers detained in administrative detention and to convey a clear message of strengthening and encouraging the [West Bank] settlements, which are at the forefront of the struggle against Palestinian terrorism and facing growing security challenges,” he said.
Israel has jailed thousands of people under administrative detention, overwhelmingly Palestinians.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu’s hardline national security minister, also announced on Thursday evening that he would quit the government if it ratified the ceasefire deal in Gaza. He claimed it would “erase the achievements of the war” by releasing Palestinian militants and ceding territory in Gaza.
But while the threat is a blow to Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir’s departure would not bring down the prime minister’s government.
The Israel interior minister, Moshe Arbel, demanded a vote on the Gaza ceasefire deal from the full cabinet via a telephone poll on Friday, “so that the hostage families will know before the Sabbath that the government has approved it”.
The deal finalised in Doha after weeks of talks largely follows the contours of a truce agreement set out last May. Biden had presented the deal as a cornerstone achievement of his administration and called it the result of “dogged and painstaking American diplomacy”.
Alongside the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, the first phase will also allow Palestinians displaced from their homes to move freely around the Gaza Strip, which Israel has cut into two halves with a military corridor. Wounded people are supposed to be evacuated for treatment abroad, and aid to the territory should increase to 600 trucks a day – above the 500 minimum that aid agencies say is needed to contain Gaza’s devastating humanitarian crisis.
In the second phase, the remaining living hostages would be sent back and a corresponding ratio of Palestinian prisoners would be freed, and Israel would completely withdraw from the territory. The specifics are subject to further negotiations due to start 16 days into the first phase.
The third phase would address the exchange of bodies of deceased hostages and Hamas members, and a reconstruction plan for Gaza would be launched.
Arrangements for future governance of the strip remain hazy. The Biden administration and much of the international community have advocated for the semi-autonomous West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, which lost control of Gaza to Hamas in a brief civil war in 2007, to return to the strip. Israel, however, has repeatedly rejected the suggestion.
More than 15 months of war has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians and laid waste to most of Gaza’s infrastructure. The international court of justice is studying claims that Israel has committed genocide.
Bethan McKernan is Jerusalem correspondent for The Guardian
Lorenzo Tondo is a Guardian correspondent
Andrew Roth is The Guardian’s global affairs correspondent
