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77 more die in IDF attacks as Israeli cabinet delays ratifying Gaza ceasefire deal

REUTERS & AFP
Friday, Jan 17, 2025

DOHA/CAIRO/JERUSALEM: Israel said it had delayed holding a cabinet meeting on Thursday to ratify a ceasefire with Hamas, blaming the militant group for the hold-up, as Palestinian authorities said Israeli airstrikes overnight had killed 77 people in Gaza.

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 U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. The dispute involves the identities of several prisoners Hamas is demanding to be released and it is expected to be resolved soon, the U.S. official said. Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer told reporters that Israeli negotiators were in Doha to reach a solution.

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 Friday. 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.

For some Palestinians, the deal could not come soon enough. “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. A military spokesperson said that the Israeli military is looking into the reports.

In a related development, Hamas’s armed wing warned that Israel’s continuing air strikes and shelling in Gaza after the announcement of a ceasefire deal was risking hostages meant to be released.

“Any aggression and shelling at this stage by the enemy could turn the freedom of a prisoner into a tragedy,” the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said on Telegram. Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that its teams had recovered the bodies of five children after a strike in the northern city of Jabalia.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken voiced confidence that the implementation of a ceasefire in Gaza would begin Sunday.

Blinken said that he and other officials of President Joe Biden´s administration, which ends Monday, were on the telephone to try to resolve issues in the ceasefire announced Wednesday through mediator Qatar.

In another development, earlier this week, the World Health Organization called for the international community to fund a scaled-up aid response to end 15 months of war in the region.

WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the costs of rebuilding Gaza’s health system were enormous, estimated at around $3 billion for the next year and $10 billion in the next six or seven years, although these are only early estimates.