After the cabinet meeting to approve the hostage-ceasefire between Israel and Hamas delayed, Hebrew media reported Thursday night that the final hurdles delaying the deal have been cleared, but that the cabinet vote will not take place until Saturday night.
Both the US and Qatar — who mediated the negotiations — announced Wednesday that an agreement had been reached to end the 15-month war in Gaza triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held off on publicly commenting, saying he would only do so when the terms were finalized.
Jerusalem did not vote to approve the deal as planned on Thursday morning, with Netanyahu’s office saying details remained to be finalized and that Hamas was throwing last-minute wrenches into the negotiations. An Israeli official told The Times of Israel however that the real reason the premier delayed the vote as part of a scramble to keep his coalition intact.
The official, who is not from the Prime Minister’s Office, acknowledged the details were still being finalized in negotiations, but insisted the disagreements were relatively minor, and chalked up the delay to “coalition politics.”
Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partner National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir formally threatened on Thursday to bolt the government if the deal is approved, while Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is said to be weighing a similar move.
According to Channel 12 news, the full cabinet vote on the hostage-ceasefire deal will not take place until Saturday night, meaning that implementation of the deal might not start before Monday, a move which, according to the outlet, was said to have “stunned” the White House.
Pictures of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza since October 7, 2023, hang from trees at the so-called Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, January 16, 2025.. (Jack Guez/AFP)
According to the report, US President Joe Biden’s administration is fuming over the decision and warned that the extra day could lead to further complications in the deal’s implementation.
A senior Biden administration official however downplayed the apparent delays in the deal’s finalization.
“We consider the hostage deal done and agreed, and are now simply awaiting Israel’s formal approval procedures which begin tomorrow [Friday],” the official told The Times of Israel.
A source familiar with the matter said the Biden administration wants the deal authorized as quickly as possible and believes that Netanyahu has the votes for the hostage deal to pass both security cabinet and full cabinet votes over the weekend.
The Prime Minister’s Office did not comment on the reported delay. Earlier Thursday, it issued a statement saying the cabinet will not convene until mediators inform Israel that Hamas has accepted all elements of the agreement.
“It’s not exactly surprising that in a process and negotiation that has been this challenging and this fraught, you may get a loose end,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a press conference in Washington. “We’re tying up that loose end as we speak.”
Once the cabinet vote is held, a list of Palestinian security prisoners to be freed will be published, and opponents will have 48 hours to petition against these releases to the Supreme Court.
The report said the Prime Minister’s Office decided that if the original timetable were to be maintained, and a vote held Friday, those opposed to the release of Palestinian security prisoners as part of the deal would have almost no time to lodge appeals because of Shabbat. The court is not expected to intervene in Israel’s release of these prisoners.
Channel 12 said judicial sources have made clear that the formal 48-hour period for petitions can be shortened, as happened ahead of the November 2023 hostage-truce agreement, and that the intended Sunday start of the deal need not be altered, but that the Prime Minister’s Office was not persuaded.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (left) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attend a vote in the Knesset plenum, Jerusalem, December 31, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
The network also reported that Netanyahu and Smotrich met for the sixth time in two days, as the premier seeks to persuade the finance minister’s Religious Zionism party not to quit the government over the hostage deal.
The unsourced report said the government may pass a separate decision to placate Smotrich stating that the war against Hamas will not end before the terror group’s military and governing capabilities are destroyed. This decision will also define a new war goal: Destroying terrorism in the West Bank.
Channel 12 assessed that even if Smotrich and fellow far-right minister Ben Gvir vote against the deal, it will be approved by both the security cabinet and the full cabinet.
The TV report also said that Israel’s negotiators are staying in Doha until the deal is signed and will return to participate in the cabinet discussions.
A sign calling for the release of hostages held by terror groups in Gaza, near the Israeli border with the Strip, January 16, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
The deal is currently scheduled to take effect on Sunday at 12:15 p.m., with the first three hostages to be released soon after. US President-elect Donald Trump, who is to be sworn into office on Monday, declared he wants the agreement finalized before then while saying his involvement was crucial for the negotiation.
“We changed the course of it, and we changed it fast, and frankly, it better be done before I take the oath of office,” he said in a podcast interview with Dan Bongino.
Trump also said “we shook hands, and we signed certain documents, but it better be done.”
He claimed Biden did nothing.
“I’m not looking for credit. I want to get these people out,” he said. “We’ve got to get them out.”
????PRESIDENT TRUMP LIVE ON THE DAN BONGINO SHOW????
“ THERE WOULD BE NO HOSTAGE DEAL WITHOUT US.. And it BETTER BE DONE BY THE TIME I TAKE THE OATH” pic.twitter.com/NUvf0Jw3bU— Johnny St.Pete (@JohnMcCloy) January 16, 2025
Trump likened the situation to the hostage Iran hostage crisis that was resolved moments after then-president Ronald Raegan entered office in the place of Jimmy Carter.
“For three years they’ve lived like in hell,” Trump said of the hostages, who have been in captivity for 470 days. “We gotta get them out, and it’ll be great when we do.”
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum also called on the government to swiftly approve the agreement, following reports of the delayed cabinet vote.
“For the 98 hostages, every night is another night of a terrible nightmare. Do not delay their return even for one more night,” the forum said in a statement.
“We call on the decision-makers — put other matters aside, bring them all back with the requisite urgency.”
An electronic billboard beams an image of President-elect Donald Trump and references his threat to unleash hell if hostages held in Gaza are not freed until his inauguration later this month. in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. (AP/Oded Balilty)
The father of Liri Albag, an IDF surveillance soldier taken captive on October 7, wrote a letter to Netanyahu and government ministers that similarly warned “a further delay in approving the deal means another unnecessary day that our daughters are imprisoned in hell.”
According to a leaked copy of the agreement, over 1,700 Palestinian prisoners are to be freed in return for 33 Israeli hostages in the first phase of the deal: 700 terrorists, 250-300 of whom are serving life terms; 1,000 Gazans captured since October 8 in fighting in the Strip; and 47 rearrested prisoners from the 2011 Gilad Shalit deal.
Earlier Thursday, senior coalition member and Shas party leader Aryeh Deri said he received word that the final deal had been agreed upon and the cabinet would soon convene, but an Israeli diplomatic source continued to insist that the last details of a hostage release deal have not been finalized.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu is adamant on finalizing all the details of the agreement before he brings it to the approval of the cabinet and the government,” the source told reporters, claiming that Israel forced Hamas to back down from last-minute demands over the Philadelphi Corridor.
“This insistence seems to be bearing fruit, but until things are fully agreed upon, Netanyahu will not convene the cabinet and the government,” the source said.
In the background of the delayed cabinet vote, a delegation of senior Israel defense officials is still set to head to Egypt’s capital Cairo Friday to coordinate matters relating to the ceasefire and hostage deal, according to Hebrew media outlets.
People watch the live television broadcast of a press conference by Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani announcing a ceasefire-hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, along a street in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on January 15, 2025. (Bashar Taleb/AFP)
The Walla news site and Army Radio reported that the delegation will include senior Shin Bet officials, the head of the IDF Strategy Directorate Maj. Gen. Eliezer Toledano, and COGAT chief Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian.
The meetings will focus on coordinating the process of releasing the hostages on the first day of the ceasefire, the reports said. In the previous ceasefire deal, the hostages were released via the Rafah Crossing to Egypt and then to Israel.
The reports also said the delegation will discuss with Egyptian officials the reopening of the Rafah Crossing for Palestinians to leave Gaza, the entry of aid to the Strip, and the IDF’s deployment and expected withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor, the Egypt-Gaza border area.
The war began when Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing over 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 hostages during their October 7, 2023, onslaught.
During a November, 2023 temporary truce, 105 hostages were released, while four were freed earlier and eight have been rescued alive by troops from Gaza.
The bodies of 40 hostages have been recovered from the Strip, and of the 94 captives believed to still be held, 34 have been confirmed dead by Israeli officials. The fate of many of the others is unknown.
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