A few hours before the start of the ceasefire in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a speech with more threats than optimism. They were his first statements since the announcement of the agreement last Wednesday, and for 10 minutes he stressed that the first phase – which begins this Sunday and will last a month and a half – is nothing more than a “temporary ceasefire” and that “ “They have given full support to Israel’s right to resume fighting if Israel concludes that the second phase negotiations are going nowhere.” If we do so, he warned, it will be “in new ways and with great force.”
Throughout his speech to the nation, Netanyahu has indicated that he will not rest until “all the objectives of the war are met,” which includes both the elimination of Hamas and the return of all (98) hostages, which passes through a definitive ceasefire. Although the agreement almost literally coincides with the one he rejected eight months ago and has accepted now that Trump returns to the White House, Netanyahu has defended that Hamas “has now accepted what it did not accept before.”
the so-called Philadelphia Corridor, and will even “increase a little” its military presence there. The agreement stipulates, however, that it will “gradually reduce” it in the first phase and that it will “commence and complete its withdrawal” between the handover of the last hostage of the first phase (day 42) and the eighth day of the second phase ( day 50).
Netanyahu’s threat of “new ways” to fight in Gaza coincides with the justification hours before by his Minister of Finance, the ultranationalist Bezalel Smotrich, of his decision to remain in the coalition Executive. Smotrich claims to have received guarantees “through a governmental decision, in the cabinet and otherwise” that “it will in no way end the war without achieving all its objectives, in particular the complete destruction of Hamas in Gaza” and that it will “completely change the method of war” and include “the gradual takeover of all of Gaza.” “Look at Gaza. It is destroyed, uninhabitable, and it must remain that way,” he assured.
Smotrich advocates colonizing the Strip with Jewish settlements, like the West Bank. Also for resuming the war after the first phase of the agreement, in which 33 of the 98 hostages will regain freedom. The Chief of the General Staff, Herzi Halevi, has also spoken about the future of Gaza: “Hamas has been seriously weakened and we will not allow it to recover or be in control.”
The Netanyahu Government had a comfortable majority: 24 votes in favor and eight against, corresponding to those already advanced by the two ultranationalist partners (Religious Zionism, the party led by Smotrich, and Jewish Power), plus two dissidents from the Likud, the Netanyahu formation. The three ministers of Jewish Power will present their resignation this Sunday, their leader, the head of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, has confirmed. He has made it clear, however, that he will provide a parliamentary security network for Netanyahu to remain in power and will return to the Executive if necessary.
After 15 months of devastating invasion, the ceasefire in Gaza will come into force at 08:30 local time (07:30, in mainland Spain) this Sunday, as announced this Saturday by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, its guarantor together with the US. USA and Egypt.
(almost all of them have had to abandon them, out of fear or by order of the Israeli army, generally on several occasions), the Qatari spokesperson for Foreign Affairs, Majed Al Ansari, has asked for patience in recent hours: “We recommend that the inhabitants take precautions, act with “Use maximum caution and wait for instructions from official sources.”
More violence
During the day, preparations for the first release of hostages (three women) in the hands of Hamas in exchange for the release of dozens of Palestinian prisoners have gone hand in hand with the latest outbreaks of violence, in the form of bombings in the north. , center and south of the Strip; of the launch by the Houthi militia from Yemen of two missiles against Israel (which have been intercepted by defense systems and have caused no victims) and of a knife attack in Tel Aviv.
As is usual in armed conflicts, the imminence of the truce has not reduced the intensity of the bombings. This Saturday, Israeli tanks opened fire on the Zeitoun neighborhood, in the capital of Gaza, and aircraft bombed the center and south of Gaza, killing five people (three of them minors) in a tent with displaced people. in Al Mawasi, the so-called “humanitarian zone” to which Israel urged the population to flee, according to health services. Since the announcement of the agreement on Wednesday, the Israeli army has stepped up its attacks.
In Israel, attention is focused on the first three hostages who will be released. As stipulated in the agreement, Hamas should have communicated their names on Saturday afternoon to the Qatari mediators, so that they could transfer them to Mossad (Israel’s secret services abroad) and this, first of all, to the families. This has not been the case and, in mid-afternoon, Netanyahu warned that he will not carry out this Sunday’s release if he does not receive them. “Israel will not tolerate violations of the agreement,” he indicated. For each hostage, Israel will release 30 of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners for crimes linked to the Middle East conflict.
It will be the first of the weekly exchanges (not daily, as in the first ceasefire agreement, in November 2023, shortly after the war began). Seven days later, Hamas will hand over four more hostages. Since then, releases will once again be three at a time.
The preparations also affect Egypt’s border crossing with Gaza (Rafah), completely closed since Israeli troops took it in May and on whose Egyptian side hundreds of trucks are lined up. Every day of the truce, 600 trucks of humanitarian aid and commercial goods will enter there. Among them, 50 tanker trucks loaded with fuel (which is missing not only for travel, but also for hospitals or electrical generators), the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Badr Abdelatty, reported this Saturday.
Yemen’s Houthis, the only foreign armed group that continues to attack Israel with missiles and drones in retaliation for its invasion of Gaza, have taken advantage of the eve of the truce to launch two missiles. One, against Tel Aviv, and another, against the industrial zone of Eilat, in the southern tip of the country. The Israeli authorities have assured that they were intercepted and there were no victims, unlike another attack during the day, also in Tel Aviv and which the police are investigating as an attack. A 19-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank stabbed a passer-by, who is in serious condition, before being shot dead by an armed civilian.
