Israel delays cabinet vote to approve deal, claims Hamas creating ‘last-minute crisis’

Israeli strikes have killed at least 71 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, since the ceasefire agreement was announced yesterday, Gaza’s Civil Defense said this morning.

Another 200 people were injured, said spokesperson Mahmoud Basal.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News. Israel has consistently denied targeting civilians throughout the war and said it is acting to destroy Hamas.

At least 15 people were killed and more than 20 injured in strikes that hit a residential block north of Gaza city late last night, the civil defense said earlier on Telegram.

Two more bodies were recovered in central Gaza city, the civil defense said this morning. It also said five others were killed and more than 10 were injured from the same family after a house was struck west of Gaza city.

Iran has hailed the ceasefire agreement as a “clear victory” for the Palestinian resistance, as it called for Israeli leaders to be punished for war crimes.

“The imposition of a ceasefire on the Zionist regime mark a clear victory for Palestine and an even greater defeat” for Israel, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayotallah Ali Khamanei, hailed Gazans, saying on X, “It was the patience of the people & steadfastness of Palestinian Resistance & Resistance Front that forced Zionist regime to retreat.”

In another statement, Iran’s foreign ministry called for the “punishment of the criminal leaders of the Israeli regime for committing the most severe international crimes.”

The International Criminal Court in November issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant for a string of human rights abuses in the Gaza Strip. Israel has branded ICC’s decision as “antisemitic.”

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an advocacy group that represents many of the hostages’ families, said the families were “deeply moved and overjoyed” by news of the ceasefire deal, which includes the release of 33 hostages in the first phase.

But it expressed concern about whether the bodies of hostages who had died would be returned to Israel for burial.

“We are filled with worry as we hear media reports that completely ignore the group of fallen hostages as if they have vanished and are no longer deserving of being brought home to their land for a proper burial,” the group said according to a statement published in The Jerusalem Post. “We are deeply concerned that they will be left behind.”

Under the terms of the agreement, the bodies of hostages who have died are to be returned in the third phase.

King Abullah II of Jordan welcomed the Gaza ceasefire and urged the world “to alleviate the tragedy by maximizing the humanitarian response.”

“We value the efforts of Egypt, Qatar, and the US,” he said in a post on X today, “and reaffirm Jordan’s commitment to supporting the Palestinians, sustaining aid flow, and working for peace.”

The number of people killed in Gaza during Israel‘s deadly offensive in the Palestinian enclave is significantly higher than the figures reported by local health authorities, researchers at a leading health university in Britain have found.

In the peer-reviewed study that was published last week in The Lancet journal, researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said they estimated that as many as 64,260 people were killed in the first nine months of the war.

That would be around 41% higher than the official figure of 37,877 reported by the Palestinian health ministry for that time.

Read the full story here.

A senior Hamas official has said the group is committed to the ceasefire deal reached yesterday, after Israel claimed the group was reneging on the deal.

“Hamas is committed to the ceasefire agreement, which was announced by the mediators,” Izzat al-Rishq said in a Telegram post.

Another senior official, Sami Abu Zuhri, told Al-Arabiya TV that “there is no basis for Netanyahu’s allegations that the movement has backed down from the terms of the ceasefire agreement.”

He claimed that Israel “wants to create a state of tension at a critical time and we demand that it be obligated to implement the agreement.”

Now that Israel and Hamas have signed a ceasefire, “the priority must be to ease the tremendous suffering,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

“The United Nations stands ready to support the implementation of this deal and scale up the delivery of sustained humanitarian relief to the countless Palestinians who continue to suffer,” he told reporters yesterday, calling the humanitarian situation “catastrophic.”

“It is imperative that this ceasefire removes the significant security and political obstacles to delivering aid across Gaza so that we can support a major increase in urgent lifesaving humanitarian support,” Guterres said.

Adi Alexander, whose son Edan is among the American hostages held by Hamas, spoke with NBC News after the ceasefire and hostage agreement was announced.  

Israel has said that its cabinet, which had been expected to meet today, will not vote on the ceasefire deal as it claimed Hamas had reneged and created a “last-minute crisis.”

Hamas said in a statement that it was “committed to the ceasefire agreement, which was announced by the mediators.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office had said the militant group had reneged on parts of the agreement “in an effort to extort last-minute concessions.” It was not clear which aspects of the deal Israel was referring to.

The Israeli cabinet “will not convene until the mediators notify Israel that Hamas has accepted all elements of the agreement,” the prime minister’s office said.

The earliest a ceasefire can come into effect is Friday, after it is approved by the Israeli cabinet. The country’s Supreme Court would then have 24 hours to allow an appeal and the first hostages would come out on Sunday, a diplomatic source in Washington previously told NBC News.