Dozens killed in Gaza as Israel delays key vote on truce
CNN
The Israeli cabinet was expected to vote Thursday on whether to ratify a highly anticipated ceasefire and hostage release deal agreed between Hamas and Israel. Follow for live news updates.
• Israel’s cabinet will vote Friday on a Gaza ceasefire and hostages deal, after earlier blaming Hamas for reneging on parts of the agreement, which the group denied. A key party in Israel’s governing coalition threatened to quit if it does not return to war after the first stage of the ceasefire. • The agreement to pause the war in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, was made on Wednesday. Here’s what we know about it. • Israeli bombardments killed at least 81 Palestinians over the last 24 hours, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said, marking the highest daily death toll in over a week despite the agreement. • The three-phase deal is set to begin Sunday, but many of its details and the timeline remain unclear. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he won’t comment until all details are finalized. • International aid agencies welcomed the deal and vowed to scale up their work in Gaza. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees called for “rapid, unhindered and uninterrupted humanitarian access” to the strip to relieve the suffering caused by war. The ramping up of humanitarian aid into Gaza to 600 trucks a day, as outlined in the ceasefire and hostage release deal agreed between Hamas and Israel, would be “only a start” in addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, a UN humanitarian official has said.
American officials believe a ceasefire and hostages release deal in the Israel-Hamas war is now in sight, in what marks the first real sign of serious optimism inside the Biden administration in months, sources familiar with the issue told CNN.
Israeli negotiators attending ceasefire and hostage release talks in Doha have expressed “cautious optimism,” even as some gaps between both sides persist, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.
It was a last-minute push by Saudi Arabia that decided Lebanon’s fate on Thursday.
The Israeli military said Friday it had identified the body of a hostage recovered from a tunnel in southern Gaza as the son of Yosef Al-Ziyadnah, a hostage whose body was recovered earlier this week.
Lebanon’s parliament has elected its US-backed army chief to be the country’s next president, ending a years-long political stalemate and presidential vacuum.
The Israeli military, in an effort to defend its devastating assaults on Gaza’s hospitals, this week released an edited interrogation video that it said bolstered its case that Hamas uses medical facilities as cover for military activity.
The United Arab Emirates has been in discussions about the possibility of playing a role in postwar efforts to rebuild Gaza, but its conditions for doing so have yet to be met, a UAE official told CNN.
Israel has warned on Sunday that its ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah could collapse if the Iran-backed group does not withdraw beyond the Litani River, one of the key stipulations of the truce.
Israel is considering limiting humanitarian aid to Gaza after Donald Trump comes into office later this month in a bid to deprive Hamas of resources, according to an Israeli official familiar with the matter.
An Israeli human rights group said it has filed a petition with the Israeli High Court of Justice demanding to know the whereabouts of a prominent Palestinian hospital director detained by the military.
An Israeli strike killed at least 11 Palestinians overnight, including the director general of Gaza police and a deputy, in Al-Mawasi, southern Gaza, local officials said Thursday.
Israel’s population growth slowed in 2024 compared to the previous year, according to the state’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), with the slump mainly attributed to Israelis leaving the country.