Gaza: Israel accuses Hamas of calling into question the truce

Israeli authorities accused Hamas on Thursday morning of provoking “a last-minute crisis.” According to them, he returned to certain points of the ceasefire agreement and the release of hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, announced the day before by the Qatari, Egyptian and American mediators. Hamas contests.

“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.

Several Israeli media had mentioned a possible meeting of this restricted cabinet at the end of the morning before a vote on the agreement in the Council of Ministers, without this being officially confirmed.

At midnight (11 p.m. in Switzerland), Mr. Netanyahu’s office indicated that the “final details” were still the subject of negotiations and that “an official statement from the Prime Minister” on the agreement would not be published “until ‘after (their) finalization’, which had not yet taken place at 11 a.m. (10 a.m. in Switzerland).

Hamas contests

A senior Hamas leader denied Thursday that the Palestinian movement had reneged on certain points of the truce agreement in Gaza announced the day before, saying that Israeli accusations in this regard had “no basis.”

“The accusations [du premier ministre israélien Benyamin] Netanyahu’s claims that the movement would return to points of the ceasefire agreement have no basis,” Sami Abou Zouhri, a leader of the Islamist movement from the Gaza Strip, told AFP. Israel “creates tensions from scratch at a crucial moment and […] we ask the outgoing and next US government to force it to implement the agreement,” he added.

Aid of 120 million euros

The European Union announced on Thursday the granting of humanitarian aid of 120 million euros for the Gaza Strip, after Wednesday’s announcement of an agreement for a truce in this Palestinian territory.

This aid is intended to deal with the “catastrophic situation” in Gaza, said a spokesperson for the European Commission during the daily press briefing in Brussels.

Three steps

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.

ATS

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