The full cabinet vote on the agreement is now expected to take place on Saturday. However, the smaller security cabinet is meeting today to vote on the deal.
Israel’s cabinet has postponed a key vote on the Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal until Saturday, with a smaller security cabinet vote scheduled for Friday, according to a report by CNN.
As per an Israeli official, the full cabinet vote on the agreement is now expected to take place on Saturday. However, the smaller security cabinet will meet on Friday to vote on the deal.
Notably, the meeting was originally planned for Thursday.
Earlier, the leader of the opposition Yair Lapid responded to the threat made by a coalition party to quit the government if the deal is approved.
In a rough translation of a post on X, Lapid wrote, “I say to Benjamin Netanyahu, don’t be afraid or intimidated, you will get every safety net you need to make the hostage deal. This is more important than any disagreement we’ve ever had.”
Israel’s Minister of National Security and far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir strongly criticised the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, calling it “reckless.”
He said that the deal would undermine the achievements of the war and emphasised that if the deal is approved, his party, Otzma Yehudit, will quit the government.
In a rough translation of a post on X, he wrote, “The deal that is taking shape is a reckless deal. It includes the release of hundreds of murderous terrorists, the return of thousands of terrorists to the northern Gaza Strip, a withdrawal from the Philadelphia axis, and a cessation of fighting, and thus the deal will effectively erase the achievements of the war.”
He added, “Not only that, it does not lead to the release of all the hostages, it leaves the fate of the remaining hostages who are not included in the deal uncertain, and it will lead to an end to the war when Hamas has not yet been defeated, with a significant ability to rebuild itself. Therefore, if this reckless deal is approved and implemented, the Otzma Yehudit party will not be part of the government and will withdraw from it.”
Israel strikes despite truce deal
Israeli strikes have killed 86 and injured 258 since the ceasefire deal was announced on Wednesday, according to a spokesperson from Gaza’s Civil Defence. The daily death toll in the period immediately after the ceasefire announcement is the highest in over a week. The dead include 23 children, spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said in his Thursday press release, CNN reported.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announced that the Israeli army bombed a site in the Gaza Strip where an Israeli captive, scheduled for release in the first phase of an upcoming prisoner exchange, was being held.
Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson for Al-Qassam, said that the Israeli army targeted a location holding one of the captives set to be released in the initial phase of the exchange deal shortly after the agreement was announced, Xinhua news agency reported.
He considered that “any aggression or bombing at this stage by the enemy could turn the freedom of a captive into a tragedy.”
The statement provided no further details about the incident, the health condition of the Israeli captive, or the targeted location.
Since October 7, 2023, Hamas and Israel have been locked in a devastating war that has claimed the lives of over 46,700 Palestinians in Gaza and caused widespread destruction.
The conflict erupted after Hamas launched a surprise attack on towns in southern Israel, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking around 250 hostages.
Meanwhile, Israel’s military said it struck about 50 sites across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, a day after it agreed to a ceasefire deal with Hamas.
In a statement, the military said the strikes targeted a militant who took part in the Hamas-led onslaught on Israeli communities in October 2023. The militant “participated in the massacre at the Nova Music Festival,” the military said.
It also attacked other Hamas and Islamic Jihad military compounds, weapons storage and manufacturing facilities, launch posts, and observation posts, according to the statement.
In an update earlier on Thursday, Gaza’s health authorities said that Israeli airstrikes in the besieged Palestinian enclave had killed 81 people and injured nearly 200 others over the past day.
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