Palestinians in the Bureij Refugee Camp, strive to maintain their routines under challenging conditions, surrounded by destroyed buildings, as the implementation of a ceasefire agreement is anticipated in the coming days in Gaza City, Gaza on January 17, 2025. [Moiz Salhi – Anadolu Agency]
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry announced on Saturday that the ceasefire agreement for the Gaza Strip will go into effect at 8.30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Sunday, Jan. 19, Anadolu Agency reports.
Ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari confirmed the development on X: “As coordinated by the parties to the agreement and the mediators, the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will begin at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, January 19, local time in Gaza.”
“We advise the inhabitants to take precaution, exercise the utmost caution, and wait for directions from official sources,” he added.
The Israeli army also issued a statement confirming its readiness to implement the deal.
“The agreement will take effect on Sunday, January 19, at 08:30,” the Israeli army said in a statement, noting that its forces “will carry out the operational plan in the field in accordance with the established agreements.”
Meanwhile, the Interior and National Security Ministry in Gaza announced preparations to deploy its forces in the enclave after the ceasefire enters into force.
Qatar announced a three-phase ceasefire agreement on Wednesday to end more than 15 months of deadly Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip with the ceasefire set to take effect on Sunday.
Nearly 46,900 Palestinians, mostly women and children, were killed and more than 110,600 injured in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, according to local health authorities.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
A father cries while carrying the body of his child wrapped in a blood-stained shroud west of Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, on January 14, 2025. (Photo: Youssef Alzanoun/Middle East Images via AFP via Getty Images)
“As a cease-fire in Gaza is near, Israel is expanding its assault on the West Bank,” said one expert. “It was always a war on Palestinian existence.”
As negotiators in Qatar navigated the “final stage” of a cease-fire agreement to end the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, Israel’s forces on Tuesday continued to kill Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave and the illegally occupied West Bank.
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed at least 46,645 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 110,012, with over 10,000 others missing, health officials said Tuesday. The true death toll could be much higher. A peer-reviewed analysis published last week in The Lancetfound that the official tally through last June was likely a 41% undercount.
The Palestinian National Authority’s news agency WAFA reported Tuesday that IDF shelling killed at least two civilians at the Nuseirat refugee camp and a correspondent in Gaza City “said that Israeli warplanes fired missiles at a house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, north of Gaza City, and another house in the Manara neighborhood, south of Khan Younis City, killing several civilians and injuring others.”
According to multiple media outlets, Israeli forces also killed at least 13 people in an attack on a home in Deir al-Balah.
Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its assault on Gaza and in November the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.
In addition to waging war on Gaza over the past 15 months, Israel has stepped up its military activity in the West Bank—where a Tuesday strike on the Jenin refugee camp killed at least six Palestinians and wounded several others. The Times of Israel reported that “the IDF said it carried out the strike in a joint operation with the Shin Bet, without immediately providing further information.”
The Israeli newspaper also noted that “on Tuesday evening, as on many previous Tuesday nights, thousands gather for a unity rally of prayer and song held in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square,” while hundreds of right-wing demonstrators blocked “an intersection in central Jerusalem, in protest of the ongoing hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas.”
According to a draft obtained by The Associated Press, the first part of the three-stage deal would involve a halt to the fighting, both sides releasing captives, displaced Palestinians in Gaza returning home, and more humanitarian aid entering the strip.
Phase two would feature a declaration of “sustainable calm” and Hamas freeing more hostages in exchange for additional Palestinian prisoners and the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, AP reported. The third part would include an exchange of bodies, a reconstruction plan for the strip—where civilian infrastructure is in ruins—and the reopening of border crossings.
“The terms of the deal being negotiated are largely consistent with what was on the table last May when outgoing President Joe Biden first announced it. Biden allowed Netanyahu to steamroll him for months—rewarding Israel with billions of dollars in arms transfers and political support after rejecting that cease-fire deal,” Jeremy Scahill detailed at Drop Site News.
The latest cease-fire talks come as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump prepares for his inauguration next Monday. The Republican has been pushing for a resolution to Israel’s assault on Gaza—or at least an appearance of one—before he returns to office.
“The fact that Trump emerged as the decisive player in pushing a potential cease-fire forward is evidence that Biden never used the full powers available to a sitting U.S. president to seal the deal in the summer,” wrote Scahill. “While Trump has publicly repeated his threat that he will ‘unleash hell’ on Hamas if the Israeli hostages are not freed, his pressure has not been solely focused on Hamas; Trump and his aides have made clear to Netanyahu that the president-elect expects Israel to comply with his demands, too.”
Netanyahu on Tuesday told hostages’ families that “he is willing to agree to a prolonged cease-fire Gaza in exchange for their return,” according toHaaretz. Later Tuesday, The Times of Israel reported that the prime minister was meeting with “Israel’s hostage negotiation team and with members of Israel’s security establishment,” and expected negotiations to go through the night.
Even if a deal is reached regarding Gaza, some experts fear the bloodshed will continue there and in the West Bank
“There will possibly be an end to the Gaza war, but there will be now another war in the West Bank,” Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian analyst and director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul Zaim University, told Scahill. “It may not be on the same scale, but it would be as vicious from the settlers, from the Netanyahu government.”
Gazan writer and analyst Muhammad Shehada wrote for the U.S.-based Center for International Policy last week that a senior Arab official told him the U.S. president-elect asked the Qataris and Egyptians to finalize a deal before he takes office but the Israeli prime minister “is not budging while at the same time issuing false positive statements of a breakthrough and progress to buy time and pretend to seek a deal until Trump is in office, where Netanyahu can trade the Gaza war for something big in the West Bank.”
Sharing on social media a video of the Tuesday strike on Jenin, Middle East expert Assal Rad said that “as a cease-fire in Gaza is near, Israel is expanding its assault on the West Bank. The Gaza genocide is only the most recent atrocity Israel—with the help of the U.S.—has carried out against Palestinians. The same story for 77+ years. It was always a war on Palestinian existence.”
Saed Abu Nabhan, a freelance Anadolu cameraman in Gaza, was killed by an Israeli army long-range rifle attack on Friday, Anadolu Agency reports.
The Israeli military first surrounded an area in the Al-Jadeed Refugee Camp, located in the central Gaza Strip’s Nuseirat region, where many journalists were present, before targeting those in the area.
Footage from the scene shows a wounded individual being rushed out of a house on a stretcher with the help of aid workers.
Nearby, Abu Nabhan is seen trying to run while covering the incident with his equipment. At that moment, he is targeted by what appears to be a shot fired from a long-range rifle.
Abu Nabhan then falls to the ground and lies motionless. People nearby struggle fearfully to approach him due to the threat of being targeted by Israeli bullets.
Official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, reported on the attack, confirming that Abu Nabhan was killed.
Separately, at least one person was reported dead, with the deceased and injured taken to Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, following an Israeli air strike on a house in Gaza’s Shuja’iyya neighbourhood.
The death of Abu Nabhan brought the total number of Palestinian journalists killed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since 7 October, 2023 to 203. Reports also indicate that 399 journalists have been injured, and 43 others captured.
The Israeli army has continued a genocidal war on Gaza that has killed more than 46,000 people, most of them women and children, since a Hamas attack on 7 October, 2023, despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire.
In November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its deadly war on Gaza.
On the day the US honours former President Jimmy Carter, a key figure in the creation of the International Criminal Court, the US House of Representatives passed an AIPAC-backed bill to sanction the ICC. In a 243-140 vote, the ‘Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act’ imposes sanctions on the ICC and key figures within it over its arrest warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his ex-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, fueling controversy over US priorities and international justice.
US House passes bill to impose sanctions on International Criminal Court
On the day the US honours former President Jimmy Carter, a key figure in the creation of the International Criminal Court, the US House of Representatives passed an AIPAC-backed bill to sanction the ICC. In… pic.twitter.com/6ItCvvMoe0
The US House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday to impose sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) in protest of its arrest warrant for Israeli officials, Anadolu Agency reports.
The bill, which was introduced last Friday as soon as the 119th Congress began, passed in a 243-140 vote.
The Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act imposes sanctions on those who aid efforts by the ICC to prosecute Americans or Israelis.
The ICC issued arrest warrants in November for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.
US congresswoman, Rashida Tlaib, criticised the voting.
“What’s their top priority the first week of the new Congress? Lowering costs? Addressing the housing crisis? No, it’s sanctioning the International Criminal Court to protect genocidal maniac (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu so he can continue the genocide in Gaza,” Tlaib wrote on X.
Rep. Jim McGovern criticised Republicans for prioritising sanctioning the ICC amid the wildfires in the state of California.
“Of all the ways that Republicans have shown this country how messed up and backwards their priorities are, I have to say that this bill that we debating today to sanction the International Criminal Court, the ICC, this really takes the cake,” McGovern said from the House floor.
Senate Majority Leader, John Thune, pledged to bring the legislation to the Senate floor.
The Israeli army has continued a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 46,000 victims, mostly women and children, since 7 October, 2023, despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire.
Israeli military vehicles patrol the streets and alleys of the area during the second day of the raid on the Tulkarem Refugee Camp in the West Bank on December 25, 2024 [Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency]
Palestinian factions called, Monday, for escalating resistance operations in the Occupied West Bank in retaliation for Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, Anadolu Agency reports.
Three illegal Israeli settlers were killed and six others injured early Monday in a shooting attack near the Kedumim settlement in the northern West Bank.
In a statement, Hamas hailed the attack as
a heroic response to the ongoing crimes and war of extermination committed by the (Israeli) occupation against our people in Gaza, the displacement plans in the West Bank, and the settler aggression on the Al-Aqsa Mosque and holy sites
“This operation is a message to the extremist Israeli government and its ministers that there is a free and rebellious nation that will not abandon its rights and that the resistance will continue until the occupation is removed from all of our lands,” it added.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) called the shooting attack a “powerful message” to the Israeli occupation.
It called for escalating resistance operations in the West Bank “to confuse the occupation’s calculations and weaken its security system.”
The Popular Resistance Committees termed the attack “a natural response” to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and the Judaisation and annexation plans in the West Bank.
Tension has been running high across the Occupied West Bank due to Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 45,800 people, mostly women and children, since 7 October, 2023.
At least 835 Palestinians have also been killed and nearly 6,700 others injured by Israeli army fire in the Occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian figures.
In November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
