A view of the Gaza Strip from the Israeli side of the border on January 16, 2025.
Amir Levy | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Israeli warplanes and artillery struck the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday, leaving eight people dead, Palestinian medics said, shortly after Israel and Hamas missed a deadline for a ceasefire that could have ended the most devastating conflict in the Middle East in years. Conflict paves the way.
The implementation of the ceasefire and the latest violence came an hour before the 0630 GMT deadline, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Hamas to provide three hostages to be released on Sunday as part of the deal. happened.
Hamas said it was committed to a ceasefire but had so far been unable to provide a list of hostages due to “technical reasons” without elaborating.
According to Israeli authorities, the ceasefire could help end the war in Gaza, which began after the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which controls the tiny coastal territory, attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people. People die.
The Israeli response has devastated the Gaza Strip, killing nearly 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities. The war has also set off a confrontation across the Middle East between Israel and its archenemy Iran, which supports Hamas and other anti-Israel and anti-American paramilitary forces in the region.
An Israeli military spokesman said in a separate statement on Sunday that its aircraft and artillery struck “terror targets” in northern and central Gaza and that the military would continue to attack as long as Hamas did not fulfill its obligations under the ceasefire agreement. the zone.
Palestinian civilian emergency services said the Israeli attack killed at least eight people and injured dozens more. Medics reported tanks firing into Gaza City’s Zeitoun district, and the northern town of Beit Hanoun was also hit by airstrikes and tank fire, causing residents who were expected to return there to flee after the ceasefire.
The Israeli military said in a separate statement that the air raid sirens sounded in the southern Israeli region of Sderot were a false alarm.
Some celebratory gunshots and cheers were heard in the southern city of Khan Younis at 8:30 am (0630 GMT) as the ceasefire was about to take effect.
Israeli troops have begun withdrawing from the Gaza Sharafah region to the Philadelphia Corridor along the border between Egypt and Gaza, pro-Hamas media reported earlier on Sunday.
hostage list
Netanyahu requested an hour before the deadline for the names of the first three hostages to be released within hours of the ceasefire.
“The prime minister instructed the Israel Defense Forces that the planned ceasefire will take effect at 8:30 a.m. and will not begin until Israel receives a list of released abductees promised by Hamas,” his office said on Sunday.
Hamas said the delay was “technical” but that the names of the hostages could be released soon.
The three-phase ceasefire agreement follows months of on-again, off-again negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the United States, and was reached ahead of the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on January 20.
The first phase will last six weeks, during which 33 of the remaining 98 hostages – women, children, men over 50, sick and wounded – will be released in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
They include 737 male, female and teenage prisoners, some of whom are members of militant groups convicted of attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, as well as hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza detained since the war began.
The first three hostages are expected to be released through the Red Cross on Sunday. In return for each, 30 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails will be released.
Under the terms of the agreement, Hamas will notify the International Committee of the Red Cross of a meeting point inside Gaza, and the ICRC is expected to drive to the location to receive the hostages, an official involved in the process told Reuters.
End the war?
Chief U.S. negotiator Brett McGurk said after the hostages were freed on Sunday, the agreement called for the release of four more hostages seven days later and three more every seven days thereafter.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s team worked closely with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to push for the deal.
As the inauguration approaches, Trump has again called for a deal as soon as possible and has repeatedly warned that there will be a “heavy price to pay” if the hostages are not released.
But without a comprehensive agreement on the enclave’s postwar future, it remains unclear what happens next for Gaza, which will require billions of dollars and years of work to rebuild.
Although the ceasefire’s stated goal is to end the war once and for all, it can easily fall apart.
Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for nearly two decades, has survived despite losing its top leadership and thousands of fighters.
Israel has vowed not to allow Hamas to return to power and has cleared large swaths of land inside Gaza in a move widely seen as a move to create a buffer zone that would allow its forces to move freely against threats in the enclave.
In Israel, the return of the hostages could go some way to easing public anger against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government after an Oct. 7 security failure led to the deadliest day in the country’s history.
Middle East shock wave
The war has sent shock waves across the region, sparking a conflict with Lebanon’s Tehran-backed Hezbollah movement and bringing Israel into direct conflict with its arch-enemy Iran for the first time.
It also transformed the Middle East. Iran has spent billions of dollars building a network of militant groups around Israel, its “axis of resistance” has been destroyed, and it was unable to cause more than minimal damage to Israel in two major missile strikes.
Hezbollah’s vast missile arsenal was once seen as Israel’s biggest threat, but its top leadership was killed and much of its missiles and military infrastructure destroyed.
On the diplomatic front, Israel faces anger and isolation over the death and destruction in Gaza.
Netanyahu faces an International Criminal Court arrest warrant on war crimes charges and genocide charges at the International Court of Justice.
Israel has reacted angrily to both cases, denying the accusations as politically motivated and accusing South Africa, which brought the original case to the ICJ, and the countries that joined it, of anti-Semitism.
