Israel considers Gaza ceasefire temporary and reserves ‘right to return to fighting’, Netanyahu says
A ceasefire between Hamas and Israel will take effect at 8:30 a.m. local time on Sunday, mediator Qatar announced Saturday, as families of hostages held in Gaza braced for news of loved ones, Palestinians prepared to receive freed detainees and aid groups they rush to establish a wave of aid.
But in a national address 12 hours before the ceasefire began, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country was treating the ceasefire as temporary and reserved the right to resume fighting if necessary.
“If we must return to the fight, we will do so in new, forceful ways,” Netanyahu said.
“President [Donald] Trump and the President [Joe] Biden has fully supported Israel’s right to return to the fray if Israel concludes that Phase B negotiations are futile,” he said, referring to the outgoing US president-elect.
Netanyahu also claimed to have negotiated the best possible deal, although far-right Public Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he and most of his party would resign from the Israeli government in opposition.
The prime minister had earlier warned that the ceasefire would not continue unless Israel received the names of the hostages to be released, as agreed. Israel expected to get the names from Qatari mediators.
There was no immediate response from Qatar or the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which led the deadly attack on Israel in October 2023 that drove Israelis into Hamas-controlled Gaza.
Approval of an overnight ceasefire by the Israeli government, at a rare meeting during the Jewish Sabbath, set off a flurry of activity and a new wave of emotion as relatives wondered whether the hostages would be returned alive or dead.
Families and thousands of others gathered once again in Tel Aviv on Saturday night.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the truce cannot resume on Sunday unless Israel receives a list of the names of hostages to be released from Gaza under the deal. David Des Roches, an associate professor at the Near East Institute in Washington, says one reason could be the specific ratio in the exchange of Palestinian detainees and Israeli hostages.
The 15-month pause in the war is a step towards ending the deadliest, most destructive fighting ever between Israel and Hamas – and comes more than a year after the only other truce was reached.
The first phase of the truce will last 42 days, and negotiations on the far more difficult second phase should begin in a little more than two weeks. After those six weeks, the Israeli security cabinet will decide how to proceed.
Israel continues its attacks on Gaza
In Gaza, Israeli warplanes have continued attacks since the deal was reached and targeted the territory on Saturday. The Gaza Ministry of Health announced that 23 bodies had been brought to hospitals in the last 24 hours.
Israeli tanks shelled Gaza City and airstrikes hit central and southern Gaza, residents said. Doctors in Gaza said five people were killed in an airstrike that hit a tent in the Al-Mawasi area, west of the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel’s military said it had struck Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters since Friday who were among 50 “terrorist targets” it struck across Gaza.
“What kind of truce is it that kills us hours before it starts?” asked Abdallah Al-Aqad, the brother of the woman killed in the Khan Younis airstrike.
Health officials said the couple and their two children, ages two and seven, were dead.
Sirens sounded across central and southern Israel, and the military said it intercepted missiles fired from Yemen. Iran-backed Houthi rebels there have stepped up attacks in recent weeks, calling it solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.
‘The corruption will stop’
The war broke out after an attack led by Hamas on October 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 captured, according to Israeli figures. Almost 100 hostages remained in Gaza.
Israel responded with an offensive that killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s population.
A new report published in the journal The Lancet suggests that the number of people killed in Gaza in the first nine months of the war between Israel and Hamas may be 40 percent higher than reported by Hamas officials.
“The first thing I will do is go and check my house,” said Mohamed Mahdi, a father of two who was displaced from Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood.
He said he was also looking forward to seeing family in southern Gaza, but was “still worried that one of us might be killed before we can meet.”
Majida Abu Jarad said she moved seven times with her husband and their six daughters during the war, obeying Israeli evacuation orders and staying in tents, abandoned classrooms or on the streets.
We will stay in the tent, but the difference is that the bleeding will stop, the fear and we will sleep peacefully, she said as she packed up.
Israel has faced accusations of genocide in Gaza over the scale of the death and destruction, which it rejects, saying it abides by international law and has the right to defend itself after the Hamas attack.
Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, Israel’s former defense minister, have been issued arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes.
