Israeli authorities accused Hamas on Thursday morning of provoking “a last minute crisis” by going back on certain points of the ceasefire agreement and the release of hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, announced the monitored by Qatari, Egyptian and American mediators.
“Hamas is going back on certain points of the agreement reached with the mediators and Israel in an attempt to extort last-minute concessions,” said a statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The Israeli security cabinet will not meet (to approve the agreement) until the mediators have notified Israel that Hamas has accepted all elements of the agreement,” the text adds.
As a result, Israeli strikes continue and the Civil Defense of the Gaza Strip announced Thursday the deaths of 73 people, in what its spokesperson presented as a “strong intensification” of the Israeli army’s bombings occurring after the announcement of an agreement on a truce to begin on Sunday.
“Since the ceasefire agreement was announced, the Israeli occupation forces have killed 73 people, including 20 children and 25 women” in bombings that mainly targeted Gaza City but also Khan Younes, said Mahmoud Bassal, spokesperson for this first aid organization, told AFP. According to him, “230 people were injured” in these bombings which “continue”.
The agreement provides for a truce after more than 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas accompanied by the release of hostages kidnapped on October 7, 2023 during the attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement which triggered the hostilities.
According to the mediators, the agreement provides for three stages starting with a truce from Sunday, and the release over a period of 42 days of 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for a thousand Palestinian prisoners, as well as an increase in the humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, devastated by the war.
Under the terms of the agreement, the other hostages, alive or dead, must be released from the second phase, at the end of 42 days.
