Netanyahu stalls on ceasefire as over 80 killed in Gaza – National & International News – THU 16Jan2025

Israeli PM Netanyahu stalls ceasefire vote to save his political skin. More than 80 killed in Gaza after ceasefire announcement.

Netanyahu stalls on ceasefire as over 80 killed in Gaza 

Israel’s Cabinet was to meet this morning to ratify the terms of the ceasefire deal, which their negotiators signed off on in Doha, Qatar, yesterday. The Qatari prime minister said yesterday that the deal as signed would go into force on Sunday. As has happened throughout these negotiations, the Israeli side has thrown in a last-minute wrench in an apparent attempt to thwart the deal from going into force. 

Netanyahu is now refusing to convene the Cabinet to ratify the deal. A spokesperson from Netanyahu’s office told Reuters that, “Hamas reneged on parts of the agreement reached with the mediators and Israel in an effort to extort last minute concessions. The Israeli cabinet will not convene until the mediators notify Israel that Hamas has accepted all elements of the agreement”. 

A Hamas spokesperson says the group is committed to the terms of the ceasefire agreement announced yesterday. 

US officials say they are “confident” the ceasefire will go ahead as planned on Sunday, but there are no such positive indications from Netanyahu’s camp. This afternoon, Israeli officials told news outlets that a cabinet meeting was set for Friday. The latest news is that it has been pushed back to Saturday. 

Who is really reneging?

According to Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News, the Palestinian negotiating team actually signed off on the deal on Monday. The Palestinian negotiating team includes representatives from Hamas and other Palestinian political groups.

On Tuesday, the Palestinian side was still waiting on maps from Israel showing the positions within Gaza to which their forces will withdraw during phase one of the ceasefire. The deal calls for Israeli forces to withdraw from populated areas to positions no more than 700 m within Gaza’s border. Scahill says the Palestinian side wants exact positions nailed down so they can accurately report any violations of the agreement by Israel’s forces.

Outside of Netanyahu’s unsubstantiated allegations, all indications are that Hamas remains fully committed to the ceasefire deal and its implementation. Instead, it is Netanyahu who appears to be trying to wriggle out of it to suit his own personal and political purposes.

Netanyahu scrambles to save his political skin

Throughout the evening, various members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, including a minister from his own Likud party, have come out to say they will quit the government if the ceasefire deal is approved. This is very bad news for Netanyahu. If his government were to fall, he would not only lose his premiership, but also his shield against a potential prison sentence for corruption and bribery charges against him.

Shortly before Netanyahu’s office announced the postponement of the cabinet meeting, Knesset member Zvi Succot of the Religious Zionist party (a far-right party led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich) said that the party would quit Netanyahu’s governing coalition if the deal is approved. “If the deal leads to halting the war without achieving its objectives, there is no point in continuing our partnership with the government,” Succot told Israeli public radio. “We are in discussions with the Prime Minister to secure guarantees that the war will continue”. 

Israeli media reported yesterday that Smotrich had already received such assurances from Netanyahu. Today, members of Smotrich’s party said they would only agree to the first part of the ceasefire if Netanyahu assured them that Israel would “return to the war to destroy Hamas” as soon as phase one elapsed in 6 weeks’ time.

Yair Lapid, who heads the chief opposition party in Israel, offered Netanyahu a lifeline this afternoon. The two are bitter political rivals, but Lapid offered to shore up Netanyahu’s coalition if any seats were lost by approving the ceasefire and hostage release deal. “This is more important than any disagreement we’ve ever had”. Netanyahu has not publicly commented on Lapid’s offer of support.

Gaza carnage continues

Meanwhile, Israeli forces have continued full spectrum attacks and bombardment in the Gaza Strip overnight and into this morning. As of current reporting, over 80 people have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire deal was announced yesterday, 20 of them children.

Palestinian journalists Ahmed Al-Shayah and Ahmed Abu Al-Roos were also killed in separate airstrikes overnight. Since October 2023, Israel’s military have killed at least 165 journalists and media workers, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The vast majority have been in Gaza, where foreign journalists have only rarely been allowed to enter for the past 15 months. Others have been killed in the occupied West Bank, Israel and Lebanon.

According to CPJ, at least 11 of these journalists and two media workers “were directly targeted by Israeli forces in killings which CPJ classifies as murders”.

Palestinians are not the only ones at risk from Israel’s continued shelling. Their own hostages, so close to freedom, are also being endangered. According to Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, Israel last night targeted a building with an airstrike where a female hostage was being held. This hostage was set to be released in the first phase, and her fate is currently unknown. “Any aggression and shelling at this stage by the enemy could turn the freedom of a prisoner into a tragedy,” Obeida said.