A military vehicle manoeuvres in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border on August 28, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

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Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (center) convened his security Cabinet to vote on a ceasefire deal after confirming an agreement had been reached that would pause the 15-month war with Hamas in Gaza, in Jerusalem on January 17, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Handout Israeli Government Press Office/ via AP

Israel’s security Cabinet recommended approval on Friday (January 17, 2025) of a ceasefire deal after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed an agreement had been reached that would pause the 15-month war with Hamas in Gaza and release dozens of hostages held by militants there.

Mediators Qatar and the U.S. announced the ceasefire on Wednesday (January 15, 2025), but the deal hung in limbo for more than a day as Mr. Netanyahu insisted there were last-minute snags he blamed on Hamas.

The militants maintained they were “committed” to the deal, while residents of Gaza and families of the hostages anxiously waited to see if it would materialise.

The deal now goes to the full Cabinet of Ministers for final sign-off. It is expected to “OK” the ceasefire, which could start as soon as Sunday (January 19, 2025), even though it has drawn fierce resistance from Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners. However, their objections could destabilise his government.

Hamas triggered the war with its October 7, 2023, cross-border attack into Israel that killed some 1,200 people and left some 250 others captive.

Israel responded with a devastating offensive that has killed over 46,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and militants but say women and children make up more than half of those killed.

Beyond the death and destruction in Gaza, the conflict has also destabilised the Middle East and sparked worldwide protests.

On Thursday (January 16, 2025), Israeli strikes killing at least 72 people in Gaza. In previous conflicts, both sides have stepped up military operations in the final hours before ceasefires as a way to project strength.

Mr. Netanyahu instructed a special task force to prepare to receive the hostages returning from Gaza, and said that their families were informed a deal had been reached. The Prime Minister’s office said that if the deal passes, the ceasefire could start Sunday (January 19, 2025) and the first hostages could be freed then too.

Under the deal, 33 of some 100 hostages who remain in Gaza are set to be released over six weeks in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Israeli forces will pull back from many areas, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians would be able to return to what’s left of their homes, and there would be a surge of humanitarian assistance.

The remainder of the hostages, including male soldiers, are to be released in a second — and much more difficult — phase that will be negotiated during the first.

Hamas has said it will not release the remaining captives without a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal, while Israel has vowed to keep fighting until it dismantles the group and to maintain open-ended security control over the territory.

Jaher Jabareen, head of Hamas’ office responsible for prisoners, said on Friday (January 17, 2025) that the names of those expected to be released from Israeli jails will be published, but didn’t say when.

Longer-term questions about postwar Gaza remain, including who will rule the territory or oversee the daunting task of reconstruction.

An Egyptian official and a Hamas official confirmed that the last-minute issues were over the list of Palestinian prisoners to be released from Israeli jails during the first phase of the deal, but those have now been resolved. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private negotiations. The Hamas official said mediators showed the group Israel’s approval.

The Egyptian official added that an Israeli delegation from the military and Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency arrived in Cairo on Friday (January 17, 2025) to discuss the reopening of the Rafah crossing, a key link between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. An Israeli official who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations confirmed a delegation was going to Cairo to discuss the crossing.

On Thursday (January 16, 2025), Israel’s hard-line National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, threatened to quit the government if Israel approved the ceasefire. He reiterated that on Friday (January 17, 2025), writing on social media platform X: “If the ‘deal’ passes, we will leave the government with a heavy heart.”

Mr. Ben-Gvir’s resignation would not bring down the government or derail the ceasefire deal, but the move would destabilize the government at a delicate moment and could eventually lead to its collapse if Ben-Gvir were joined by other key Netanyahu allies.

A Palestinian man inspects the damage to a school sheltering displaced people after it was hit by an Israeli strike, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, at Beach refugee camp in Gaza City, September 22, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Civil defence rescuers in Gaza City said an Israeli strike on Sunday (September 22, 2024) on a school-turned-shelter killed at least seven people, with the Israeli military saying it had targeted Hamas militants.

The vast majority of the besieged Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once by the war, sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, with many seeking shelter in school buildings.

Israeli strikes on school-turned-shelters in Gaza

Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal reported “seven martyrs and a number of wounded, including serious cases, as a result of Israeli shelling of Kafr Qasim School” in the Al-Shati refugee camp.

He said hundreds of displaced Gazans were sheltering there.

The Israeli military said it was targeting Palestinian militants operating from the school grounds, and that its forces had taken steps “to mitigate the risk of harm to uninvolved civilians” including by using “precise munitions” and surveillance.

It said the air force had “conducted a precise strike on Hamas terrorists in the northern Gaza Strip” who were “operating from a compound” at the school complex.

The military statement did not provide information on casualties.

This attack was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on school buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where fighting has raged for nearly a year.

On Saturday (September 21, 2024) the civil defence agency said an Israeli strike on another school-turned-shelter, also in Gaza City, had killed 21 people. The military said it was targeting militants.

School sheltering displaced people

A strike on the United Nations-run Al-Jawni School in central Gaza on September 11 drew international outcry after the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said six of its staffers were among the 18 reported fatalities.

The Israeli military accuses Hamas of hiding in school buildings where thousands of Gazans have sought shelter — a charge denied by the Palestinian militant group.

At least 41,391 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to data provided by the health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged these figures as reliable.

The recent conflict resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.

Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 97 are still being held inside the Gaza Strip, including 33 who the Israeli military says are dead.

Medics rush a US citizen who reportedly received a gunshot wound in the head to the emergency ward of a hospital in Nablus in the occupied West Bank on September 6, 2024. A Palestinian hospital official said on September 6 that a US citizen died from a “gunshot in the head” in the occupied West Bank, and Israel’s military said it was investigating the incident.
| Photo Credit: AFP

U.S. citizen taking part in a protest against settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank died of her wounds on Friday (September 6, 2024) after being shot in the head by Israeli troops, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the report. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. embassy.

Fouad Nafaa, the head of the Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, told Reuters the woman arrived at the hospital in a very critical condition, with a serious head injury.

“We tried to perform a resuscitation operation on her, but unfortunately she died,” he said.

WAFA said the incident occurred during a regular protest march by activists in Beita, a town near the city of Nablus that has seen repeated attacks by settlers.

The rise in violent attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian villages in the West Bank has caused growing anger among Western allies of Israel, including the United States, which has imposed sanctions on a number of individuals.

Friday’s incident comes a few weeks after around 100 settlers attacked the village of Jit, in the northern West Bank, drawing worldwide condemnation and a promise from the government of swift action against anyone found guilty of violence.

Palestinians and rights groups regularly accuse Israeli forces of standing by as attacks take place and even joining in themselves.

In the latest war between Israel and Hamas, children were targets on both sides. Israel started its heavy bombardment of Gaza, a tiny Mediterranean land strip of 2.3 million people, on October 7 after Hamas, the Islamist militant group that runs the enclave, carried out an unprecedented cross-border raid, killing at least 1,400 Israelis.

Of the victims, 447 were children and 248 were women, according to Israeli authorities. In retaliation, Israel has cut off food, fuel and power supplies to Gaza, laid siege to the enclave and started bombing it disproportionately. Israel’s President Isaac Herzog suggested there are no innocent civilians in Gaza. In the Israeli attacks, in 22 days, at least 7,700 people were killed, some 70% of them women and children.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, the toll includes more than 3,500 minors. The Israeli attacks have also turned more than a million people refugees. Israel ordered one million people living in northern Gaza to move towards the south. Since children make up half of Gaza’s population, they are the hardest hit age category by the displacement as well.

Now that Israel launched its ground invasion, many more Palestinians will be killed, wounded and displaced, which means many more children would be victimised.