Israel cabinet to vote on Gaza ceasefire deal on Friday, reports

Thanks for reading, here is a quick recap of today’s main events:

• Israel’s hardline National Security MinisterBen-Gvir said he would resign from government if a ceasefire was approved
• Its cabinet will vote on a deal tomorrow morning, local media reported
• Israel said it killed a man involved in the musical festival attack at the heart of Hamas’s massacre on October 7
• The White House was “confident” the ceasefire deal will start on Sunday, Antony Blinken said in his last news conference as US Secretary of State
• Gaza said 71 Palestinians were killed in Israeli air strikes and more than 200 injured, despite a ceasefire being expected to start in just a few days
• Israel’s cabinet did not meet to approve a ceasefire deal this morning, as expected, with Netanyahu saying it only will when Hamas backs down

Israeli centrist opposition leader Yair Lapid reiterated his offer to give Netanyahu his support in the event Ben-Gvir resigned from government.

“I say to Benjamin Netanyahu, don’t be afraid or intimidated, you will get every safety net you need to make the hostage deal,” Lapid posted on X.

“This is more important than any disagreement we’ve ever had.”

Israel’s hardline National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he would resign from government if it ratified a ceasefire deal in Gaza.

He said: “This is a terrible deal and if it will actually go through, we members of Otzma Yehudit will give letters of resignation to the Prime Minister, we will no longer be part of the government and we will leave it.”

Otzma Yehudit is an ultra-nationalist party advocating for the deportation of those who they consider to be the “enemies of Israel”.

Ben-Gvir added that if the war is “renewed” to defeat Hamas, “we will offer to return”.

His resignation has the power to bring down Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as the Prime Minister is already holding together a fragile coalition of centre-right and hard-right politicians.

However, Ben-Gvir said tonight vowed his party would not topple the government.

A senior Israeli security delegation, including members of the country’s army and intelligence agency Shin Bet, will reportedly travel to Cairo tomorrow.

Barak Ravid, a CNN analyst and Axios reporter, said the head of the Israel Defence Forces’ (IDF) Strategic Directorate, Maj Gen Eliezer Toledano, along with other IDF and Shin Bet officials, will make the trip in order to help coordinate the implementation of the ceasefire.

Mr Ravid added: The coordination concerns the process of releasing the hostages on the first day of the ceasefire. In the previous agreement, the hostages left through the Rafah crossing into Egypt and from there were transferred to Israel.

“A senior Israeli official said that other issues the security delegation will address will be the reopening of the Rafah crossing to evacuate wounded Palestinians from Gaza and the introduction of humanitarian aid as stipulated in the agreement, as well as the change in the deployment of IDF forces on the Philadelphia axis.”

Rome’s chief rabbi on Thursday sharply criticised Pope Francis over the pontiff’s recent ramping up of criticism against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, in an unusually forceful speech during an annual Catholic-Jewish dialogue event.

Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni – spiritual leader of Rome’s Jewish community since 2001 – said Francis had unfairly focused his attention on Israel compared to other ongoing world conflicts, including those in Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Ethiopia.

“Selective indignation weakens the pope’s strength,” said Di Segni.

“A pope cannot divide the world into children and stepchildren and must denounce the sufferings of all,” he said. “This is exactly what the Pope does not do.”

The pope has repeatedly spoken out about Israel’s war on Gaza, saying last week that the humanitarian situation in Gaza was “very serious and shameful”.

The “drama” created by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the final stages of the ceasefire deal is a “tempest in a teapot”, analyst Ori Goldberg said.

“This is classic Israeli MO: ‘We want to make sure that we’re in charge, that we have a veto, that we have various prerogatives’,” Goldberg told Sky News.

He claimed Netanyahu had been “pretending” to take back control of the process, adding: “He has to make it seem belaboured and cumbersome and full of difficult decisions, but the apparent drama, as far as I understand, is a tempest in a teapot.”

The US Secretary of State said he was confident a ceasefire would begin on Sunday as expected, despite last-minute glitches.

Antony Blinken, in his last news conference as America’s top diplomat, said he had been speaking to US negotiator Brett McGurk and Qatari officials on Thursday morning to resolve the issue.

“It’s not exactly surprising that in a process and negotiation that has been this challenging and this fraught, you may get a loose end,” he said. “We’re tying up that loose end as we speak.”

Defence minister Israel Katz and the ministry’s director general, Eyal Zamir, said their department is preparing for a hostage release deal.

A statement said Katz and Zamir had “directed that all ministry capabilities be made available for implementing the hostage release deal, receiving the returning hostages, and supporting their families.”

It added that the ministry’s Rehabilitation Department and Department of Families and Commemoration “have been placed on full alert alongside the IDF.”

“They will provide all necessary assistance and support to the returning hostages and their families in all aspects, emphasizing close medical and mental health care and support, and will enhance emotional support and guidance for all families,” the statement continued.

The leader of Yemen’s Houthi rebel group said it would continue “attacks if Israel continues escalating strikes on Gaza before implementing the ceasefire agreement”.

The group has carried out more than 100 attacks on ships crossing the Red Sea since November 2023, saying they are acting in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.

Abdul-Malik al-Houthi said the Houthis would “monitor developments over the coming days” vowing to continue their “operations” if Israel did in Gaza.

He added that the rebels would stand ready to provide military support to Palestinians if, at any stage, Israel withdrew from the ceasefire.

The Israeli cabinet will meet tomorrow to approve the Gaza ceasefire agreement, an Israeli official confirmed to NBC News.

The meeting had originally been planned for today.

The Times of Israel said the cabinet is set to approve the agreement in the morning because the “final hurdles” have been cleared.

An MP whose Palestinian family escaped from Gaza said the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel brought “a mix of emotions”.

Layla Moran, the Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, said she was relieved that “the bombs will stop and there’s a glimmer of hope”.

But Ms Moran, whose mother is Palestinian, said the “unimaginable devastation” and the human cost of the 15-month conflict “can never truly be undone”.

“We’ve been on the brink of peace before, only to see it slip away,” she said.
“I’m filled with terrible sadness about the tens of thousands of innocent lives lost, families shattered, and entire communities reduced to rubble.

“All I can think about are the people still stuck in Gaza without food or medical supplies, and the families of the hostages wondering if their loved ones will at last make it home alive and safe.

“While it is clear that this should have happened over a year ago, the loss and destruction should have been avoided, this should be a moment for celebration. But a ceasefire is not lasting peace – it is a pause.”

She called for a lasting political solution that delivers “security and dignity” for both sides, including a recognition of the state of Palestine and a two-state solution. Last year, Ms Moran’s family were able to flee Gaza, making a perilous journey to the southern border of Rafah.

One of the MP’s relatives died in Gaza in November, 2023, after struggling to get to a hospital.

The Prime Minister of Qatar has demanded Israel withdraw from its buffer zone in Syria.

Israeli troops seized parts of the border after the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

“The Israeli occupation’s seizure of the buffer zone is a reckless … act and it must immediately withdraw,” Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said at a news conference with Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.

“We will provide the necessary technical support to make the infrastructure operational again and provide support to the electricity sector,” he said, adding Qatar “extends its hand to our Syrian brothers for future partnerships”.

The Israeli military says it has killed one of the men involved in the October 7 attack at the Nova music festival.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said 50 targets had been hit over the last day.

Officials in Gaza claim at least 80 people have been killed the strike, 19 of whom were children.

News that Israel and Hamas have reached a hostage release deal is bittersweet for Ruth Strum as one of her sons is expected to be freed, but a second will be left behind in captivity for now.

“It is not easy for a mother to hear this,” Ms Strum told Reuters, wearing a red T-shirt emblazoned with photos of her two burly sons and the plea: “Bring Iair and Eitan home”.

Although she has no information on their whereabouts in Gaza – which has been heavily bombarded by Israel – Ms Strum said she was sure they had been kept together.

“But what will happen at the moment when they will be separated and told that one is coming out and one is not?” she said, her voice quivering. “I know that their strength is to be together, to be there for each other.”

Eitan Horn, 38, who lives with his mother, was staying with his brother Iair Horn, 46, at his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, near the Gaza fence, when Hamas launched its surprise attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023.

The two men were seized and dragged into the Palestinian enclave along with 249 other Israelis and foreigners, triggering a war that has devastated Gaza.

Some 98 hostages are still in captivity, but under the terms of Wednesday’s ceasefire, only 33 will be released over the next six weeks, including women and children, men over 50 and sick or wounded people. This suggests Iair might not be well, although there has been no word about his health.

The handover of the remaining 65, some of whom are believed to be dead, is due to be negotiated subsequently.

Since the abduction of Iair and Eitan, Ms Strum has clung to fragments of information about them. The last confirmation of their wellbeing came during a brief truce in November 2023, when some released hostages mentioned seeing the brothers alive.

“They said that they were not injured,” she recounted. “At first, they were held in an apartment but were later moved to the tunnels.”

Ms Strum has thrown herself tirelessly into campaigning for the release of all the hostages, whose faces are plastered on posters across Israel, covering bus stops, stapled to trees and wrapped around lampposts.

“I want all 98 hostages to be brought home,” she said.

Making a direct plea to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom critics say has been too hesitant to strike a deal with Hamas, Ms Strum said: “I ask you, Bibi, do everything. The people are with you. You have the support to make this happen.”

While she prepares for Iair’s return, Ms Strum allows herself to imagine the moment when both sons will be reunited with her. “I picture us together in the hospital, that I’ll be able to give them everything they need,” she said.

“I’m waiting for that embrace.”

Charity ActionAid has said it is “devastated” by the killing of one of its staff members in Gaza.

Fatin Shaqoura-Salha, nursing staff chief at Al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat, run by ActionAid’s partner Al-Awda, was killed in Gaza when her home was struck by the Israeli military on Wednesday as ceasefire negotiations were underway, ActionAid said.

Ms Shaqoura-Salha’s husband and their children were also killed in the strike just hours before the ceasefire deal was announced, the charity added.

ActionAid is demanding an immediate end to the attacks on Gaza, to stop any more lives being lost.

“Palestinians are now hoping they will survive the next three days to see the truce come into effect on Sunday,” it said.

The US is “confident” the ceasefire will go ahead on Sunday despite “last-minute issues” raised by Israel’s prime minister, White House national security communications adviser John Kirby has said.

Kirby told NBC News’s Today programme: “We’re going to get there. We’re aware of these issues that the prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] has raised today, this afternoon, their time, and we’re working through that.

“Our team on the ground is actually working with him and his team to iron all this out and flatten it and get it moving forward.

“Obviously, this has got to get approved by the Israeli government. Prime Minister Netanyahu knows that and he’s working through that process as well. But we’re confident that we’ll be able to solve these last-minute issues and get it moving, and that this ceasefire can take place starting on Sunday.”

The European Union has announced a fresh €120m humanitarian aid package for Gaza as part of its long standing commitment to support Palestinians.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said: “The ceasefire and hostage release agreement offers hope the region desperately needed. But the humanitarian situation remains grim in Gaza.”

The aid package will include:

• Food assistance to address acute food insecurity and malnutrition
• Healthcare assistance to support the functioning of healthcare facilities and provide medical supplies
• Water, sanitation, and hygiene support to allow access to water and sanitation services
• Shelter assistance to provide safe and secure accommodation for those who have been displaced
• Protection assistance to support the safety and dignity of vulnerable populations

It brings total EU humanitarian assistance to Gaza to over €450m since 2023 and is in addition to the EU Air Bridge Flights which have delivered over 3,800 tonnes of aid.  

Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova praised “the patient and persistent work of Qatari and Egyptian mediators” who helped broker the agreement and noted that “at the final stage, representatives of the new American administration also joined the negotiating marathon”.

Zakharova said at a briefing: “We expect that the implementation of the agreement reached now will contribute to the sustainable stabilisation of the situation in Gaza and create conditions for the return of all internally displaced persons … and allow Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners released as a result of the deal to join their families.”

She specifically mentioned Russian citizen Alexander Trufanov, who was held in the Gaza Strip along other hostages.

“We believe that the conclusion of this agreement will contribute to the formation of the necessary conditions for establishing a process of a comprehensive political settlement of the Palestinian problem on a generally accepted international legal basis,” Zakharova added.

The most important feature of the ceasefire agreed between Israel and Hamas is that, for the moment at least, the slaughter that has already killed more than 46,000 Palestinians and turned Gaza into a sea of ruins will stop.

But the legacy of hatred left by this ferocious conflict will shape attitudes in the Middle East for decades to come. In this respect the conflict may prove as influential as the Palestinian Nakba, or catastrophe, of 1948, when 750,000 Palestinians were forced to flee their homes. This time around, 2.3 million Palestinians were forced to flee their homes, but with nowhere to escape to.

The Gaza war – starting with the Hamas raid into Israel on 7 October, 2023 – initiated other wars in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah that will not go away. Israel, backed unreservedly by US political and military power, has won a huge, though not necessarily permanent, victory. It has radically shifted the balance of power against the Arabs and towards Israel and the US.

Hezbollah in Lebanon has been decisively weakened. The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad imploded last month. The Syrian state, for half a century the most powerful hostile Arab nation state in Israel’s neighbourhood, may not be resurrected. We have entered a period when Greater Israel and, to a much lesser extent, Greater Turkey, have become the dominant regional powers in the Middle East.

The Hamas raid 15 months ago was geared to destroy the status quo in the Middle East. It succeeded in doing so, but not necessarily to Palestinian advantage. An Israeli annexation of all or some of the West Bank looks more and more likely with a fiercely pro-Israeli US administration in the White House.

Read the full article here.

Continuing his statement in the House of Commons, Lammy said the conflict has been “littered with missed opportunities” for peace.

“Much remains to be done,” he said after a ceasefire deal had been reached. “Now is not the time for any backtracking. Both sides must implement each phase of the deal in full and on time. The history of this conflict is littered with missed opportunities.

“It would be a tragedy to let slip the chance before us, not just for a ceasefire but for a lasting peace, the chance to break the cycle of violence which has inflicted so much suffering on innocent people on both sides.”