Israeli vote on ceasefire is delayed as diplomats work on details
JERUSALEM — Negotiators raced on Thursday to resolve last-minute disputes in a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that would free hostages and halt the violence that has devastated the Gaza Strip over the past 15 months.
The disputes helped delay by at least one day a critical Israeli vote to approve the deal.
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Even though negotiators for Israel and Hamas reached a provisional agreement Wednesday, they continued to discuss outstanding issues through mediators. The Israeli Cabinet, whose approval is needed to move the ceasefire ahead, had been expected to vote on it Thursday, but the vote was postponed.
The deal has reopened deep divides in Israel, where hard-line members of the governing coalition vehemently oppose a ceasefire. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right minister for national security, announced Thursday night that his party would resign from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition should the Cabinet approve the ceasefire deal.
The move threatens to destabilize the government at a critical time but should not, in and of itself, prevent the deal from moving ahead.
The United States, which spent months struggling to broker a deal alongside Qatar and Egypt, downplayed the delay and insisted that the ceasefire would take effect Sunday as planned.
“I am confident and fully expect implementation will begin,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters Thursday. “It’s not exactly surprising that in a process, a negotiation, that has been this challenging — this fraught — we may get a loose end. We’re tying up that loose end as we speak.”
In Israel, the office of the prime minister accused Hamas of reneging on parts of the agreement.
“There isn’t any deal at the moment,” Netanyahu’s spokesperson, Omer Dostri, said in a text message Thursday. “Therefore, there’s no Cabinet meeting.”
A Hamas official, Izzat al-Rishq, said that the group remained committed to the deal announced by mediators.
After many months of watching negotiations to reach a ceasefire collapse repeatedly, many Palestinians in Gaza, Israelis and others expressed only tempered hope about the fate of the current deal.