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SvennoJ on 16 January 2025
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Netanyahu says ‘final details’ of truce deal still being worked out

The office of the Israeli prime minister has issued a statement on the ceasefire agreement.

It says:

“An official statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be issued only after the completion of the final details of the agreement, which are being worked on at present.”


Israeli opposition leaders promise to back ceasefire deal

Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz, in separate posts on X, welcomed the ceasefire deal and promised to back Netanyahu’s government as far-right members opposed to the agreement threaten to collapse the ruling coalition.

Lapid said that the deal “must not end in its first phase”. “I promised before and do again, we will supply the security net for the government until the last hostage is home,” he added.

Gantz, who quit Israel’s war cabinet amid differences with Netanyahu last June, said his party “will politically support this move if necessary”. “We must use the first phase of the deal to reach a settlement that brings back all the kidnapped and apply pressure to replace the Hamas regime,” he added.

As we’ve been reporting, Israel’s security cabinet is due to vote on the agreement on Thursday and President Isaac Herzog has called on members to back the deal. The far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called the deal “bad and dangerous” and said he would only remain in the ruling coalition if there “is the absolute certainty of returning to the war”.


‘Total victory of Israel’ came not in Gaza, but in Washington: Ex-Israeli official

“Most of the Israeli public is very glad” for the ceasefire agreement reached by Israel and Hamas, according to Alon Liel, the former director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

“It was long-awaited. In some of the circles around the families [of captives], the mood is almost euphoric,” he told Al Jazeera from Tel Aviv. “The political map looks a little different. The right wing is against the end of the war but is in fact paralysed and has no ability to topple the government,” Liel said.

“If we widen the picture a little bit, the total victory of Israel happened not in Gaza, it happened in Washington. Trump is seen as a total victory and Israel has so much to benefit from Trump regarding its international status and other issues,” he said.

Liel suggested that Israel likely negotiated a stop to the US opposition to illegal Israeli settlements on the Palestinian territories in exchange for the ceasefire in Gaza.