Netanyahu delays ceasefire vote, claiming Hamas created a ‘last minute crisis’

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said a cabinet meeting that was scheduled to vote Thursday on the peace deal between Israel and Hamas has been delayed, in a blow to hopes that a ceasefire after 15 months of fighting would take effect Sunday.

Netanyahu said that the meeting will only happen once Hamas pulls back on demands for what he called “last minute concession,” adding in a statement that “Hamas reneges on parts of the agreement reached with the mediators.”

He said that until the mediators notify Israel that “all elements of the agreement” have been accepted, the cabinet meeting would not proceed. He did not specify what elements of the deal Hamas had reneged on.

But in an interview with Al-Arabi TV, a senior Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, said there was no basis to claims by Netanyahu that Hamas was retracting parts of the ceasefire agreement.

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

Netanyahu had called President Biden and President-elect Donald Trump to thank them for their help in reaching the deal late Wednesday. 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 though it would lead to the return of dozens of Israelis held captive inside Gaza since October 2023.

Several members of the coalition have repeatedly threatened to abandon the coalition if a deal was finalized – a move that would likely prompt 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 has the country’s president, Isaac Herzog.

In the hours since the deal was announced by U.S. and Qatari officials, 73 people have been killed by Israeli forces and more than 230 injured, according to Hamas-controlled emergency rescue authorities in Gaza, with airstrikes continuing overnight into Thursday morning.

The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel from Gaza, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages into 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 military says 405 of its soldiers have been killed in fighting since it invaded Gaza.