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Negotiators raced on Thursday to resolve last-minute disputes in a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas that would free hostages and halt the violence that has devastated Gaza over the past 15 months.<\/p>\n
The disputes helped delay by at least one day a critical Israeli vote to approve the deal.<\/p>\n
Even though negotiators for Israel and Hamas reached a provisional agreement on Wednesday<\/a>, they continued to discuss outstanding issues through mediators. The Israeli cabinet, whose approval is needed to move the cease-fire ahead, had been expected to vote on it on Thursday, but the vote was postponed. <\/p>\n The deal has reopened deep divides in Israel, where hard-line members of the governing coalition vehemently oppose a cease-fire. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel\u2019s far-right minister for national security, announced on Thursday night that his party would resign from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s coalition should the cabinet approve the cease-fire deal.<\/p>\n The move threatens to destabilize the government at a critical time but should not, in and of itself, prevent the deal from moving ahead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The United States, which spent months struggling to broker a deal alongside Qatar and Egypt, downplayed the delay and insisted that the cease-fire would take effect on Sunday as planned.<\/p>\n \u201cI am confident and fully expect implementation will begin,\u201d Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters on Thursday. \u201cIt\u2019s not exactly surprising that in a process, a negotiation, that has been this challenging \u2014 this fraught \u2014 we may get a loose end. We\u2019re tying up that loose end as we speak.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He added that he had been on the phone with the U.S. envoy to the region and Qatari officials, seeking to resolve final questions.<\/p>\n In Israel, the office of the prime minister accused Hamas of reneging on parts of the agreement.<\/p>\n \u201cThere isn\u2019t any deal at the moment,\u201d Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s spokesman, Omer Dostri, said in a text message on Thursday. \u201cTherefore, there\u2019s no cabinet meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A Hamas official, Izzat al-Rishq, said that the group remained committed to the deal announced by mediators.<\/p>\n The last-minute disagreements over the deal have included questions of which Palestinians could be released and how Israeli forces would deploy along Gaza\u2019s border with Egypt during the truce, Mr. Dostri said. <\/p>\n After many months of watching negotiations to reach a cease-fire collapse repeatedly, many Gazans, Israelis and others expressed only tempered hope<\/a> about the fate of the current deal.<\/p>\n \u201cI wish I could say I am happy,\u201d said Fadia Nassar, a 43-year-old who lost her home in northern Gaza, displacing her to the south. The deal, she said, could \u201ccollapse for any reason.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy heart is broken,\u201d she added. \u201cI will probably stay in a tent. Hundreds of thousands will end up in tents.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And deadly Israeli airstrikes went on in Gaza on Thursday, with the Israeli military saying it had hit about 50 targets across the territory over the past day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe reality in the Strip remains very difficult and catastrophic,\u201d said Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for Gaza\u2019s Civil Defense, an emergency service<\/a> under the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.<\/p>\n Recent Israeli attacks in the territory killed at least 81 people and injured nearly 200 others, according<\/a> to Gaza\u2019s health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. The Civil Defense said that Israeli strikes had killed at least 77 people since the deal had been announced. The claims could not be independently verified.<\/p>\n The Israeli military said its recent targets included militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, their compounds, weapons storage areas and other sites, adding that \u201cnumerous steps\u201d were taken to prevent civilian harm before the strikes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mediators hope the cease-fire deal \u2014 which would begin with a 42-day truce and the release of some hostages \u2014 will ultimately end the war that began with the Hamas-led attack in October 2023, when about 1,200 people in Israel were killed and 250 taken hostage. The subsequent Israeli military campaign has killed tens of thousands of Gazans and forced nearly the entire population of the enclave to flee their homes.<\/p>\n In Israel, Mr. Ben-Gvir and other hard-line members of Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s government, the most right-wing and religiously conservative in Israel\u2019s history, have opposed the deal<\/a> and pushed for the war to go on until Hamas is eliminated.<\/p>\n Mr. Ben-Gvir\u2019s party, Jewish Power, holds six seats in the 120-seat Parliament, and the party\u2019s withdrawal from the governing coalition would reduce its majority from 68 to a razor-thin 62. He said his party would offer to rejoin the government should it resume the war against Hamas.<\/p>\n Earlier on Thursday, dozens of demonstrators in Israel blocked a main highway in Jerusalem to protest the deal, eventually being dispersed by the police.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n One of the protesters, Eliyahu Shahar, 21, said the agreement posed a threat to Israel\u2019s safety and should be rejected, \u201ceven if it means more hostages will die.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n If it comes to a vote, the cease-fire agreement is expected to gain Israel\u2019s approval even without the support of two far-right parties in the governing coalition. Families of hostages have hailed the deal, and opposition parties have broadly committed to propping up Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s coalition, if necessary, to secure the implementation of an agreement that would free the Israelis still held in Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is more important than all the differences of opinion that there have ever been between us,\u201d Yair Lapid, Israel\u2019s opposition leader, said in a statement.<\/p>\n Yona Schnitzer, 36, a marketing writer from Tel Aviv, said he felt \u201ccareful optimism\u201d about the deal. \u201cI hope the deal will actually happen this time,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it\u2019s confirmed and a done deal, I\u2019ll feel relief, firstly because hostages will come home, and secondly because it will bring us closer to ending this war.\u201d<\/p>\n The cease-fire deal<\/a> would begin with an initial phase lasting six weeks. It would involve the release of 33 hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and allow the entry into Gaza of 600 trucks carrying humanitarian relief daily, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by The New York Times.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, described the cease-fire agreement as \u201cthe hope the region desperately needed.\u201d But she added that the situation in Gaza remained grim. She announced<\/a> that Europe would provide $123 million in aid for Gazans this year, along with in-kind aid such as food shipments.<\/p>\n Diplomats hope the first phase of the deal would then lead to more permanent conditions, a point Mr. Blinken stressed on Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to take tremendous effort, political courage, compromise, to realize that possibility, to try to ensure the gains that have been achieved over the past 15 months at enormous, excruciating costs are actually enduring,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n But in Gaza, where ruins dominate the landscape and huge questions remain over what a postwar future will look like, uncertainty and exhaustion reigned.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s undoubtedly a good feeling to hear about the cease-fire,\u201d said Nizar Hammad, a 31-year-old who lost his home in Gaza City. \u201cBut when I think about life after the war, I think about the suffering that will continue. The scale of destruction and loss is enormous.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cHonestly, I feel numb,\u201d said Aseel Mutier, a 22-year-old from Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, whose 16-year-old brother was killed during the war and whose house was destroyed last week.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are just waiting for Sunday,\u201d she added. \u201cWe don\u2019t know what will happen between now and then.\u201d<\/p>\n Rawan Sheikh Ahmad contributed reporting from Haifa, Israel, and Isabel Kershner and Natan Odenheimer from Jerusalem.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n