Israel cabinet delays approval of Gaza ceasefire deal, as strikes on enclave kill 77
Israel said it had delayed holding a cabinet meeting on Thursday to ratify a ceasefire with Hamas, blaming the group for the hold-up, as Palestinian authorities said Israeli air strikes overnight had killed 77 people in Gaza, Reuters reports.
Hamas senior official, Izzat el-Reshiq, said the group remained committed to the ceasefire deal, agreed a day earlier, that was scheduled to take effect from Sunday to bring an end to 15-months of bloodshed.
President Joe Biden’s envoy, Brett McGurk, and President-elect Donald J. Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff were in Doha with Egyptian and Qatari mediators working to resolve the last remaining dispute, a US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.
The dispute involves the identities of several prisoners Hamas is demanding be released and it is expected to be resolved soon, the US official said.
Israeli government spokesperson, David Mencer, told reporters Israeli negotiators were in Doha to reach a solution.
The complex ceasefire accord emerged on Wednesday after mediation by Qatar, Egypt and the US to stop the war that has devastated the coastal territory and inflamed the Middle East.
WATCH: Israel Intensifies attacks on Gaza as ceasefire is agreed
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, which controls the enclave, would be freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel.
The deal also paves the way for a surge in humanitarian aid for Gaza, where the majority of the population has been displaced and is facing acute food shortages, food security experts warned late last year.
Rows of aid trucks were lined up in the Egyptian border town of El-Arish waiting to cross into Gaza, once the border is reopened.
Israel’s acceptance of the deal will not be official until it is approved by the country’s security cabinet and government, and a vote had been slated for Thursday.
However, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has delayed the meeting, accusing Hamas of making last-minute demands and going back on agreements.
“The Israeli cabinet will not convene until the mediators notify Israel that Hamas has accepted all elements of the agreement,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said.
Hardliners in Netanyahu’s government were still hoping to stop the deal, though a majority of ministers were expected to back it.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism Party said in a statement that its condition for remaining in the government would be a return to fighting at the end of the first phase of the deal, in order to destroy Hamas and bring all the hostages back. Far-right police minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has also threatened to quit the government if the ceasefire is approved.
In Jerusalem, some Israelis marched through the streets carrying mock coffins in protest at the ceasefire, blocking roads and scuffling with police.
Despite the hold-up to the cabinet meeting, political commentators on Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, said the latest delay would likely be resolved and that the ceasefire was a done deal.
Calls for faster implementation
For some Palestinians, the deal could not come soon enough.
READ: Israel’s Smotrich demands resuming Gaza war, displacing Palestinians
“We lose homes every hour. We demand for this joy not to go away, the joy that was drawn on our faces – don’t waste it by delaying the implementation of the truce until Sunday,” Gazan man, Mahmoud Abu Wardeh, said.
The accord requires 600 truckloads of humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza every day of the ceasefire, with 50 carrying fuel. The first phase of the agreement will also see Israel releasing more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
While people celebrated the pact in Gaza and Israel, Israel’s military conducted more attacks, the civil emergency service and residents said.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 81 people had been killed over the past 24 hours and about 188 injured. The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said at least 77 of those were killed since the ceasefire announcement.
The Israeli military is looking into the reports, a military spokesperson said.
Israel secured major gains over Iran and its proxies, mainly Hezbollah, as the Gaza conflict spread. In Gaza, however, Hamas may have been crippled, but without an alternative administration in place, it has been left standing.
If successful, the ceasefire will halt fighting that has razed much of heavily urbanised Gaza, killed over 46,000 people, and displaced most of the tiny enclave’s pre-war population of 2.3 million, according to Gaza authorities.
That, in turn, could defuse tensions across the wider Middle East.
With 98 foreign and 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.
Global reaction to the ceasefire was enthusiastic.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after Hamas-led gunmen burst into Israeli border-area communities on 7 October, 2023, killing 1,200 soldiers and civilians and abducting over 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.
READ: Dismantling UNRWA will be ‘catastrophic’ for Gaza and Palestinians: Expert
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What legitimacy is the PA talking about?
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250116-what-legitimacy-is-the-pa-talking-about
“While we are waiting for the ceasefire, it is important to stress that it won’t be acceptable for any other entity to govern the Gaza Strip but the legitimate Palestinian leadership and the government of the state of Palestine,” the Palestinian Authority’s Prime Minister, Mohammad Mustafa, stated during a meeting of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution.
The PA is not a legitimate leadership. In 2006, Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections, disturbing the Western world’s preferred outcome. Democracy, according to the West, can only conform with Western expectations; therefore Palestinians got a taste of what the US does when democracy crashes imperialist expectations. Instead of respecting the electoral result, the US and Fatah embarked upon a series of destabilisation and coercion tactics, aimed at marginalising Hamas further and ultimately destroying the legitimate representation of Palestinians according to the 2006 electoral result.
While Hamas was shunned and its diplomatic efforts rebuffed, even though it combined resistance and political pragmatism, the PA intensified its efforts at forcing Hamas to relinquish power, enforcing sanctions on an enclave repeatedly bombarded by Israel. When Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank protested against such authoritarianism and cruelty, the PA unleashed its security services on civilians, and continues to do so. As the US and the EU continued funnelling funds to enhance the PA’s brutality under the guise of state-building, and the PA continued harming Palestinians in the name of security, to the point of detaining, torturing and, at times, killing their critics.
READ: Palestinian Authority must run Gaza after war, Prime Minister says
All this was orchestrated because the international community sided with an illegitimate political representation under the auspices of democracy. Are we to assume that legitimacy and democracy change meaning according to colonial and imperialist interests? What of the importance of language, which is of equal importance in the anti-colonial struggle against Israel and the PA?
Back to the present. Since Israel started its genocide in Gaza, the PA has consistently sought to navigate the corridors of power by presenting itself as an alternative to Hamas. Yet, in doing so, it completely neglected the fact that its silence on the genocide is tantamount to tacit support. The PA merely reiterated the importance of the two-state paradigm as it has for decades, with no acknowledgement of the fact that not even the hypothesis can sustain itself, let alone implementation. Meanwhile, to garner favour with Israel and the international community, and possibly prove how relevant it is to post-genocide Gaza governance, the PA started its own attack against the Palestinian Resistance.
The question is, since legitimacy does not hold the same meaning for the PA and its accomplices, what does legitimacy mean in the context of its Prime Minister citing legitimacy as the reason why the PA should return to Gaza? There is no other acceptable entity, according to the PA – based on what parameters? Just as genocide became synonymous with human rights in the Israeli and international narrative, is the PA’s illegitimate rule becoming synonymous with democracy? Why hasn’t the PA suggested elections and why has the international community not voiced any concern over Ramallah wanting to extend its power to Gaza?
The PA’s attempts to prove itself purportedly worthy of governing Gaza are precisely the reason why it should not. The PA’s only foundations are foreign funding and Israeli colonialism. Having sold itself to the two highest bidders (not forgetting the tangible illegitimacy since 2006), what Palestinian leadership and legitimacy is the PA really talking about?
OPINION: What fate awaits Abbas and his Authority?
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
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Trump National Security Pick Says Israel Has Green Light to Keep Attacking Gaza
Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Journalist Jeremy Scahill noted that Mike Waltz’s comments echo “a plan Netanyahu has hinted at: Israel views this deal as only one phase to get the Israeli and U.S. hostages out.”
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to serve as national security adviser said late Wednesday that the incoming administration will support future Israeli attacks on Gaza even as Trump hailed the tenuous new cease-fire and hostage-release agreement as a signal “to the entire world that my administration would seek peace.”
In an appearance on Fox News late Wednesday after the agreement was announced, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) said that “we’ve made it very clear to the Israelis, and I want the people of Israel to hear me on this: If they need to go back in [to Gaza], we’re with them.”
“Hamas is not going to continue as a military entity and it’s certainly not going to govern Gaza,” Waltz added.
The national security adviser nominee expressed a similar position in a podcast appearance prior to the announcement of the cease-fire deal, which is currently in jeopardy as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accuses Hamas of reneging on the terms of the agreement—a claim Hamas has rejected.
Asked whether a cease-fire agreement would mean “the war is over,” Waltz said, “Hamas would like to believe that.”
“But we’ve been clear that Gaza has to be fully demilitarized, Hamas has to be destroyed to the point that it cannot reconstitute, and that Israel has every right to fully protect itself,” he added. “All of those objectives are still very much in place.”
“We need to get our people out,” Waltz continued, “and then we need to achieve those objectives in this war.”
Drop Site‘s Jeremy Scahill noted that the approach Waltz laid out mirrors “a plan Netanyahu has hinted at: Israel views this deal as only one phase to get the Israeli and U.S. hostages out.”
Last month, Netanyahu said that Israeli forces would “return to fighting” once hostages are freed.
“There is no point in pretending otherwise,” said Netanyahu, “because returning to fighting is needed in order to complete the goals of the war.”
Under the first phase of the deal announced Wednesday, a six-week cease-fire would begin as soon as Sunday and 33 hostages would be freed in exchange for the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian detainees. The second and third stages of the deal are contingent upon negotiations that will take place during the first.
The text also stipulates the “withdrawal of Israeli forces eastwards from densely populated areas along the borders of the Gaza Strip” and a reduction of Israeli troop presence in the Philadelphi corridor—an issue that has repeatedly emerged as a sticking point in cease-fire negotiations.
The agreement states that “the Israeli side will gradually reduce the forces in the corridor area during stage 1 based on the accompanying maps and the agreement between both sides.”
“After the last hostage release of stage one, on day 42, the Israeli forces will begin their withdrawal and complete it no later than day 50,” the text continues.
But Netanyahu’s office insisted Thursday that the same number of forces would remain in the corridor during the deal’s first phase—a position that critics said runs counter to the agreement.
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While Trump and his allies celebrated the announced agreement as a master stroke of dealmaking and aid groups voiced hope for some reprieve for devastated Palestinians in Gaza, Netanyahu’s spokesman told The New York Times in a text message that “there isn’t any deal at the moment.”
Israel’s cabinet was expected to vote on the deal Thursday, but Netanyahu delayed the meeting and accused Hamas of trying to “extort last-minute concessions.”
Hamas officials denied the charge, saying they are committed to the agreed-upon text.
Ruby Chen, the father of a 19-year-old Israeli-American soldier who was taken captive by Hamas on October 7, 2023, suggested Thursday that Netanyahu “might be looking to get out of” the deal as he faces backlash from far-right members of his coalition.
Citing unnamed sources, The Washington Post reported Thursday that “behind closed doors, Netanyahu has been promising his far-right allies that the war could resume after the first, 42-day phase of the cease-fire, when Hamas is to release 33 hostages in exchange for the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.”
Paul Pillar, a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote Thursday that “there remains the possibility that a renewed war in Gaza will, beginning a few weeks from now, become a problem for Trump just as it was for Biden.”
“But two main factors will incline President Trump not to exert any pressure on the Israeli government to turn away from renewing its devastation and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip,” Pillar predicted. “One is Trump’s relationship with his domestic evangelical political base, with its unconditional support for most anything Israel does. The other is that his ally Netanyahu has done him a big favor with his handling of the ceasefire negotiations, and now Trump owes Netanyahu favors in return.”
According to one Israeli report, Trump offered Netanyahu a “gift bag” of concessions in exchange for accepting a pre-inauguration cease-fire deal, including sanctions relief for violent Israeli settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank.
Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
‘How Does It Feel to Have Your Legacy Be Genocide?’ Asks Journalist Thrown Out of Blinken’s Briefing
Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“Physically dragging out a reporter from the State Department briefing room while preaching press freedom to the rest of the world is the perfect example of the Biden administration’s love affair with double standards and duplicity,” said one foreign policy observer.
Two journalists were removed from Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s final news conference on Thursday after interrupting Blinken’s remarks to heckle him about the United States’ policy toward Gaza, a day after a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel was announced. One of the reporters, independent journalist Sam Husseini, was physically carried out of the briefing room by security.
Less than two minutes into Blinken’s remarks, as he was thanking the reporters in the attendance for “asking tough questions,” Max Blumenthal, the editor in chief of The Grayzone—an independent news—addressed Blinken, saying loudly in reference to the cease-fire deal:“300 reporters in Gaza were on the receiving end of your bombs. Why did you keep the bombs flowing when we had a deal in May?” On Wednesday, President Biden announced the breakthrough, saying that “this is the ceasefire agreement I introduced last spring.”
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“Why did you sacrifice the rules-based order on the mantle of your commitment to Zionism,” Blumenthal continued, before being led to the door. “How does it feel to have your legacy be genocide?” he yelled.
Blumenthal also called out State Department Spokesman Matt Miller, who is briefly visible in a video filmed by the journalist, who charged that Miller “smirked through a genocide.”
Not long after, Husseini also interrupted Blinken.
“I am asking questions after being told by Matt Miller that he will not answer my questions,” said Husseini, who also referenced the findings of Amnesty International, which concluded in December that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. “You pontificate about a free press… Criminal! Why aren’t you in the Hague.” The Hague is where the International Criminal Court is located.
Blinken can be heard saying “respect the process” in response to Husseini’s outburst.
Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the non-interventionist “action tank” the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, remarked that “physically dragging out a reporter from the State Department briefing room while preaching press freedom to the rest of the world is the perfect example of the Biden administration’s love affair with double standards and duplicity…”
Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
- Trump National Security Pick Says Israel Has Green Light to Keep Attacking Gaza
- Israeli Attacks Kill 70+ as Netanyahu Delays Cabinet Vote on Cease-Fire Deal
- The World Stayed Silent as Israel Destroyed Gaza ‘for Generations to Come’
- How US Media Hide Truths About the Gaza War
- Report Says Biden’s ‘Empty Threats’ on Gaza Fed Israeli Impunity
