Rifts with Hamas and a far-right minister’s threat to resign complicated progress toward the Israeli cabinet’s vote on the deal, which includes the release of hostages.

Israel and Hamas agreed to a deal to halt fighting in Gaza and exchange Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, an official briefed on the deal told Reuters on Wednesday, opening the way to a possible end to a devastating 15-month conflict.

Three officials from the U.S. and one from Hamas confirmed that a deal had been reached, while the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said final details were still being ironed out.

A new report published in the U.K. medical journal The Lancet indicates that far from exaggerating the human suffering in Gaza, the ministry has likely underestimated the true number of the dead by as much as 41 percent.

Israel’s leaders claimed the right to self-defence against Hamas, but as Omer Bartov, a major historian of the Holocaust, recognised in August 2024, they sought from the very beginning “to make the entire Gaza Strip uninhabitable,

Chaos erupted at Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s final press conference Thursday after an announced Israel-Hamas cease-fire and hostage deal, with State Department employees forcibly removing reporters who accused the cabinet official of allowing a “genocide” in Gaza.

Qatar’s prime minister said the deal would go into effect on Sunday. Israel said final details still need ironing out.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Thursday his Cabinet won’t meet to approve the agreement for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of dozens of hostages until Hamas backs down, accusing the group of reneging on parts of the agreement in an attempt to gain further concessions.

The U.S., along with Egypt and Qatar, have brokered months of indirect talks between the bitter enemies that finally culminated in this latest deal. It comes after Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire in November, after more than a year of conflict linked to the war in the Gaza.

The deal promises the release of dozens of hostages held by Hamas in phases and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israel.

Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire deal, mediators announced Wednesday, pausing a devastating 15-month war in the Gaza Strip and raising the possibility of winding down the the

Why aren’t you in The Hague? Why aren’t you in The Hague ... to receive food aid in Deir al Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Thursday.Credit...Eyad Baba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ...