"Hamas is rejecting the agreements and creating a last-minute crisis that is preventing an agreement," the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Thursday morning, postponing the cabinet meeting scheduled for today that would have ratified the ceasefire and hostage exchange agreement agreed yesterday between Israel and Hamas.
"Hamas is revoking the explicit agreements agreed upon with the mediators and Israel in a last-minute blackmail attempt," he points out.
"Israel will not set a date for the cabinet or government meeting until the mediators announce that Hamas has approved all the details of the agreement," the statement concluded.
Jerusalem Post sources reported earlier that Israel's Security Council meeting scheduled for 11 a.m. will be delayed as the delegation participating in the negotiations has not yet completed its work in Qatar.
Earlier, Netanyahu's Office had again issued a statement accusing Hamas of trying to pull out of the hostage deal at the last minute, saying it was seeking last-minute changes.
"In contrast to an explicit clause that gives Israel the right to veto the release of mass murderers who are symbols of terror, Hamas demands to dictate the identity of these terrorists," the statement said, adding: "The Prime Minister instructed the negotiating team to stand firm on what has been agreed and to categorically reject Hamas' last-minute blackmail attempts."
The first phase of the agreement will last 42 days and the implementation of the agreement will begin two or three days after its signing. Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani announced that the agreement will come into effect from Sunday, January 19. At the same time, the Israeli Armed Forces should begin withdrawing eastward as displaced Palestinians begin returning to their homes and hundreds of trucks filled with tons of humanitarian aid will enter the Gaza Strip daily.
On the 16th day after the start of the first phase of the ceasefire, negotiations on the second phase of the draft agreement will begin. During the second phase, and given that there is, as emphasized in the official announcements, a “sustainable calm,” those hostages who have not been released will be released and the Israeli Armed Forces will have to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. The third and final stage will concern the reconstruction of Gaza, which will take years, and the return of the bodies of the hostages.
Hamas: The agreement is a defeat for Israel
Senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Haya claimed earlier today in a televised speech that Israel had failed to achieve its goals in Gaza.
"Our people have thwarted the declared and hidden goals of the occupation. Today we prove that the occupation will never defeat our people and their resistance," Al-Haya said, according to the German news agency dpa.
He vows that the terrorist group that rules Gaza will neither forgive nor forget, while praising the Hamas-led Israeli massacres in October 2023 that started the war in Gaza as a “military achievement” and “a source of pride for our people.”
The agreement and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran characterize it as a "great victory" for the Palestinians and a "defeat" for Israel.
“The end of the war and the imposition of a ceasefire… is a clear victory and a great victory for Palestine and a greater defeat for the monstrous Zionist regime,” the IRGC said in a statement carried by the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
Source: skai.gr
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