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Palestinian boys inspect the damage to a tent for displaced people, after an Israeli airstrike, in Khan Younis
Palestinian boys inspect the damage to a tent for displaced people, after an Israeli airstrike, amid the conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, January 17, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled Image: Reuters/Hatem Khaled
world

Israeli security cabinet approves ceasefire deal

28 Comments
By James Mackenzie and Nidal al-Mughrabi

Israel's cabinet approved a deal with Palestinian militant group Hamas for a ceasefire and release of hostages in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Saturday, a day ahead of the agreement's scheduled start.

In the early hours of Saturday after meeting for more than six hours, the government ratified the agreement that could pave the way for an end to the 15-month-old war in the Palestinian enclave, which Hamas controls.

"The Government has approved the framework for the return of the hostages. The framework for the hostages' release will come into effect on Sunday," Netanyahu's office said in a brief statement.

In Gaza itself, Israeli warplanes have kept up heavy attacks since the ceasefire deal was agreed. Medics in Gaza said an Israeli airstrike early on Saturday killed five people in a tent in the Mawasi area west of Khan Younis in the enclave's south.

This brought to 119 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli bombardment since the accord was announced on Wednesday.

After the Israeli cabinet approval, lead U.S. negotiator Brett McGurk said the plan was moving forward on track. The White House expects the ceasefire to start on Sunday morning, with three female hostages to be released to Israel on Sunday afternoon through the Red Cross.

"We have locked down every single detail in this agreement. We are quite confident... it is ready to be implemented on Sunday," McGurk said on CNN from the White House.

Under the deal, the three-stage ceasefire starts with an initial six-week phase when hostages held by Hamas will be exchanged for prisoners detained by Israel.

Thirty-three of the 98 remaining Israeli hostages, including women, children, and men over 50, were due to be freed in this phase. Israel will release all Palestinian women and children under 19 in Israeli jails by the end of the first phase.

The names of 95 Palestinian prisoners to be turned over on Sunday were announced by the Israeli Justice Ministry on Friday.

After Sunday's hostage release, McGurk said the accord called for four more female hostages to be released after seven days followed by the release of three further hostages every seven days thereafter.

HARDLINERS OPPOSE CEASEFIRE

With the accord bitterly opposed by some Israeli cabinet hardliners, media reports said 24 ministers in Netanyahu's coalition government voted in favor of the deal while eight opposed it.

The opponents said the ceasefire agreement represented a capitulation to Hamas. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened to resign if it was approved and urged other ministers to vote against it. However, he said he would not bring down the government.

His fellow hardliner, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, also threatened to quit the government if it does not go back to war to defeat Hamas after the first six-week phase of the ceasefire.

After a last-minute delay on Thursday that Israel blamed on Hamas, the Israeli security cabinet voted on Friday in favour of the ceasefire accord, the first of two approvals required.

Israel began its assault on Gaza after Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 during which some 1,200 people were killed and 250 were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

The war between Israeli forces and Hamas has razed much of heavily urbanised Gaza, killed more than 46,000 people and displaced most of the enclave's pre-war population of 2.3 million several times over, according to local authorities.

If successful, the ceasefire could also ease hostilities in the Middle East, where the Gaza war spread to include Iran and its proxies - Lebanon's Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthis and armed groups in Iraq as well as the occupied West Bank.

Gaza civilians have faced a humanitarian crisis due to hunger, cold and sickness. The ceasefire agreement calls for a surge in assistance, and international organisations have aid trucks lined up on Gaza's borders to bring in food, fuel, medicine and other vital supplies.

Palestinian relief agency UNRWA said on Friday that it has 4,000 truckloads of aid, half of which are food, ready to enter the coastal strip.

Palestinians waiting for food in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday said they hoped a truce will mean an end to hours of queuing to fill one plate.

"I hope it will happen so we'll be able to cook in our homes and make whatever food we want, without having to go to soup kitchens and exhaust ourselves for three or four hours trying to get (food) - sometimes not even making it home," displaced Palestinian Reeham Sheikh al-Eid said.

© Thomson Reuters 2025.

©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.


28 Comments
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The next step has to be global intervention to protect the Palestinians from Israel and the US.

2 state solution - Palestine and Israel. It's the only answer.

3 ( +8 / -5 )

Live of thousands, people lies in few people agreement on their decision.

-4 ( +3 / -7 )

It is an important first step, but a thousand more are needed for lasting peace.

12 ( +12 / -0 )

The SAVAGE Occupation has children of both genders under as young as 12 years old in its jails.

Un Jewish and Un Humane.

These are the very same THUGS who are insisting on the return to war after the release of the hostages.

-3 ( +6 / -9 )

Hamas must keep it's finger on the trigger simply because 3 main members of the Israeli security cabinet including the fugitive PM are still thirsty for Palestinian Blood.

-4 ( +4 / -8 )

PM Bibi, Ben-Gvir, and Bezalel Smotrich are three war criminals that needs to be removed for the Israeli government, the time has come for the citizens of Israeli to Vote Out these criminals.

-3 ( +4 / -7 )

Unfortunately, this ceasefire deal won't deter Benjamin Netanyahu from his goal of annihilating Hamas and as many Palestinians as possible, the more woman and children the better in his mind, fewer to deal with later. He will accuse Hamas of violating the ceasefire and right back down the bloody path! And what about trump, well, he will go along with it and side with Netanyahu cause, why wouldn't he!

1 ( +6 / -5 )

Unfortunately, this ceasefire deal won't deter Benjamin Netanyahu from his goal of annihilating Hamas and as many Palestinians as possible

Because Hamas will likely break the ceasefire and reap the penalty.

-6 ( +4 / -10 )

Stop Israel's military genocide..

-4 ( +6 / -10 )

Cease fire don,t mean peace. Peace will come when the last Israeli has left Palestine.

-6 ( +2 / -8 )

Biden's swan song.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

The only path forward the Israeli's and the Palestinians is to REJECT the extremists on both sides. For as long as these ideologically twisted minds are still preaching Hate and Rage in Mosques and Synagogues there will never be peace in Palestine and or Israel.

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

A decade of even more before this current war a prominent Israeli historian and academic described the treatment of the people of Gaza as a "slow moving genocide ".

Who knows what malevolence lies in the hearts and minds of Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben Gvir.

It is a sorry irony that the world

now relies on POTUS Trump to bring some solution.

He is nothing if not unpredictable.

Maybe he does bring fresh ideas to the table.

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

The text of the agreement is in Times of Israel todays edition

Joe Biden states this is the exact text he put forward in May last year.

People might ask why the delay ?

1 ( +4 / -3 )

The next step has to be global intervention to protect the Palestinians from Israel and the US.

The next step is for Hamas to relase the hostages

1 ( +5 / -4 )

The next step is for Israel to stop bombing Gaza. last night they killed 90 people.

6 ( +10 / -4 )

There are hundreds of food aid trucks waiting on the Jordan border. Israel has refused permission for them to enter.

7 ( +9 / -2 )

owzer

> Because Hamas will likely break the ceasefire and reap the penalty

Says the Netanyahu spokesperson. I thought it was the other way around, like it is often the case, including the 'occasional' bombings of IDF’s Israel killing scores of innocent Palestinians

-2 ( +5 / -7 )

Actually their wars continue, spy wars. The continue of assassination won't stop their cycle of vengeance!

-4 ( +2 / -6 )

Biden's final deal in his final weekend.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Joe Biden states this is the exact text he put forward in May last year.

People might ask why the delay ?

because Trump forced them to accept it where Biden couldn’t/didnt.

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

Right before Trump's return to the U.S. presidency.

What a coincidence.

Not.

Trump, like Reagan in January 1981, is effecting peace (as well as the freeing of hostages) even before taking office.

And they're doing so with regard to situations that were utterly mishandled and botched by their one-term Democrat predecessors.

Does anyone seriously think this would be happening if Kamala Harris was going to be inaugurated the day after tomorrow?

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

Wallace, Yes It was the exact deal the Biden admin put together 12 months ago but could not get it across the line because of Netanyahu hold over the Biden admin. He gave Biden the finger and went off bombing embassies and assassinating players. In 2019 Netanyahu defecated on Trump and Trump wanted payback and this is the result coming back to bite Netanyahu rear end like huge big chunks. The Jewish people loved him because he was wanted to destroy Iran destroy Hezbollah destroy Syria. Hamas was not even on his radar back in 2019 when they the Jewish population vote him back in. The Jewish people want him and they can lay in the dirt beside him. Because this is the end of Israel. If you are a jew and really want to live in Palestine they will have except the fact that the world will not except any more of Israel non compliance of accords and deals and resolutions. They have to accept a Palestine with one man one vote system. That it in a nut shell. But there still one more big problem, What to do with the nuclear arsenal ? Will he use them on Iran while he still has some power or see the light and accept the fact that a Jewish state is all but finished.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

The Arabs and the Jews have two options. The first option is to live and let live. The second option is to kill and exterminate each other.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Some newspeople, to provide a fig leaf of 'balance' to their reporting, mention that none of the 'prisoners' the scofflaw regime is claiming it will release have been convicted of ANYTHING, and that most of them HAVEN'T EVEN BEEN CHARGED with anything.

Which makes the more common absence of even a fig leaf effort at 'balance' pretty stark.

But even more telling is that including only that fig leaf is as far as they can go and still have their reporting appear in 'our' media.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Some newspeople, to provide a fig leaf of 'balance'

What do you propose? Do you propose that one nation will commit genocide to the other? Do you propose that the two nations will commit genocide to each other?

What a narrowness of thought.

The two peoples could have prospered and thrived together already since long ago, without a single casualty and without a single refugee.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

""Joe Biden states this is the exact text he put forward in May last year.""

Biden may have put forward this plan BUT did NOTHING to implement it or force it.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

NB, they had been living together for ages, intermarrying, going into business together, and then a European Jew, looking for a place where Jews could be safe from European racists arrived, and wrote about what a wonderful peaceful place it was. And a bunch of European racists followed and tore apart the peace.

Of course, to 'justify' what they did, they rewrote the narrative about what it was, how the population of the region reacted to their violence, and continue to do so to this day.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

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