PM reportedly says Trump backs resuming war if Hamas breaches deal

Israeli government approves hostage-ceasefire agreement with Hamas

24 cabinet members back deal; PM’s office says it will start Sunday; 2 Likud ministers join far-right in voting against it; security chiefs back it but say Hamas will try to rebuild

The security cabinet meets in Jerusalem on January 17, 2025 to discuss the ceasefire-hostage release deal. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)
The security cabinet meets in Jerusalem on January 17, 2025 to discuss the ceasefire-hostage release deal. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

The full Israeli government voted early Saturday in favor of approving the hostage-ceasefire agreement with Hamas, after the security cabinet gave its blessing to the deal on Friday.

The Prime Minister’s Office issued a brief statement after 1 a.m. confirming the government approved the deal after meeting for more than seven hours. Twenty-four ministers voted in favor of the deal and eight opposed.

The statement added that the deal would enter into force on Sunday, when the first three Israeli hostages are to be freed. Thirty-three hostages are to be freed in the first, 42-day phase of the deal.

Now that the government has approved the agreement, opponents of the deal can petition the High Court of Justice against the release of Palestinian security prisoners who are set to be freed, though the court is unlikely to intervene.

Among the ministers who voted against the deal were David Amsalem and Amichai Chikli, both members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party. Communications Minister Shlomi Karhi, another Likud member, was not present.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was joined by the cabinet members in his ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party, Yitzhak Wasserlauf and Amichai Eliyahu, in voting against the deal. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and his far-right Religious Zionism party’s Orit Strock and Ofer Sofer also voted against the agreement.

Otzma Yehudit has threatened to quit the coalition over the deal, while Religious Zionism will apparently remain in the government despite opposing it, after Netanyahu reportedly reached understandings with Smotrich to keep his faction in the fold.

Religious Zionism party head MK Bezalel Smotrich (right) with head of the Otzma Yehudit party MK Itamar Ben Gvir at a vote at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on December 28, 2022. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

The cabinet votes were held after the Israeli and Hamas negotiating teams signed the deal in Doha early Friday morning, with the Prime Minister’s Office initially announcing the full government would not convene until Saturday evening to approve it. The meeting ended up being moved up after numerous ministers, including Haredi members of the cabinet, said Shabbat considerations should not put off a life-saving matter.

However, as the meeting ended up starting late and ran hours into Shabbat, several ultra-Orthodox ministers did not participate but left instructions for the cabinet secretary to count them among the agreement’s supporters. Shas Minister Michael Malcheli wrote on his note, “There is no more important commandment than saving the lives of hostages.”

Following the vote by the full cabinet, the Justice Ministry published a list in Hebrew of 735 Palestinian detainees and security prisoners to be released during the first phase of the ceasefire agreement.

The list includes numerous terrorists serving life sentences for murder, among them members of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian Authority’s ruling Fatah movement, along with women and children being held in Israeli jails.

One of the headline names on the list is notorious Fatah terrorist Zakaria Zubeidi, who was part of a prison break from a high-security detention facility in northern Israel in 2021 before he and the five Islamic Jihad members he escaped with were again apprehended. The six later received five-year sentences for the jailbreak.

The list published online states that Zubeidi will not be sent abroad, allowing him to return home to the northern West Bank city of Jenin, where he was the commander of Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and masterminded terror attacks during the Second Intifada.

The IDF last year killed his son Mohammed alongside several other gunmen in a drone strike, describing the younger Zubeidi as a “prominent terrorist from the Jenin area.” Zakaria’s brother Daoud was fatally wounded in an exchange of fire there with Israeli forces in 2022. Jenin has again been a hotbed of terror activity over the past year.

Zakaria Zubeidi (C) who escaped out of Israel’s high-security Gilboa prison and others, surrounded by prison guards as he arrives for a court hearing in the northern Israeli city of Nazareth, May 22, 2022 (Oren Ziv/POOL)

A statement from the Justice Ministry stressed the first group of 95 Palestinian prisoners slated to be freed won’t be released until 4 p.m. on Sunday, when unconfirmed Hebrew media reports said the first Israeli captives will be let go.

Hamas on Saturday is expected to provide the names of the first three Israelis to be released, as the hostage deal stipulates the terror group must give Israel the names of the captives it will release 24 hours in advance.

The 33 hostages set to be returned in phase one of the Gaza ceasefire deal. Row 1 (L-R): Romi Gonen, Emily Damari, Arbel Yehud, Doron Steinbrecher, Ariel Bibas, Kfir Bibas, Shiri Bibas; Row 2: Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Danielle Gilboa, Naama Levy, Ohad Ben-Ami, Gadi Moshe Moses; Row 3: Keith Siegel, Ofer Calderon, Eli Sharabi, Itzik Elgarat, Shlomo Mansour, Ohad Yahalomi, Oded Lifshitz; Row 4: Tsahi Idan, Hisham al-Sayed, Yarden Bibas, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Yair Horn, Omer Wenkert, Sasha Trufanov; Row 5: Eliya Cohen, Or Levy, Avera Mengistu, Tal Shoham, Omer Shem-Tov (all photos courtesy)

The three hostages set to be freed on Sunday are widely expected to be among the list of female civilians. The 33 Israeli hostages to be released during the first stage of the ceasefire deal are so-called humanitarian cases, a category made up of women, children, elderly individuals, and the infirm. Sixty-five more hostages, including four captives held since before October 7, 2023, are to be released in the deal’s subsequent phases.

A graphic by the Hostages Families Forum highlights the 98 hostages held in Gaza, and calls for the release of all of them in the hostage-ceasefire deal signed in Doha on January 17, 2025. (Hostages Families Forum)

The government’s hostages and missing persons coordination unit on Friday notified the families of the 33 hostages expected to be released. Israel has not been told how many of them are alive, though it expects the majority are. Israel will receive a full status report on all those on the list seven days into the ceasefire. The order of release is not yet known.

The war in Gaza 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 weeklong truce in November 2023, 105 hostages were released, while four were freed earlier and eight have been rescued alive by troops from Gaza.

‘Moral debt’

According to leaks from the cabinet meeting carried by Hebrew media outlets, Netanyahu told ministers that US President-elect Donald Trump will “give his Israel full support to resume the war if the agreement is violated.” While Trump himself has not publicly made such a pledge, his incoming national security adviser stated this week that the US will back Israel if it needs to reenter Gaza.

Netanyahu was also quoted saying that Trump decided when he takes office on Monday that “we will again receive all the weaponry that was held up, which is important because if we don’t reach the second stage [of the deal] we will have additional tools to resume the fighting.”

Additionally, the premier reportedly said Hamas opposition had prevented the deal from being finalized for months, “but the situation changed because of the heroism of our soldiers and because of operations in the region, including the strong blow we dealt to the Iranian axis.”

Mossad chief David Barnea and Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, who both returned from Qatar following the signing of the deal, also addressed ministers, with the former saying they had a moral imperative to support the agreement.

“We must pay this moral debt. This deal is ethically and morally the right thing to do. It is a humane deal. It includes mechanisms that will ensure our security,” Barnea said, according to Channel 12.

Hebrew media reports cited Bar as saying during the earlier security cabinet meeting that 82 percent of the 1,027 Palestinian security prisoners released in the 2011 Israel-Hamas deal to free captive IDF soldier Gilad Shalit returned to terror activity.

Twelve percent of those former prisoners actively participated in terror attacks after their release, and even over 50% of the prisoners released abroad returned to terror activity.

Bar said Hamas will use the ceasefire to rebuild its governing and military capabilities and that the deal will likely further weaken the PA.

The security cabinet meets in Jerusalem on January 17, 2025 to discuss the ceasefire-hostage release deal. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

Despite all of that, the security chiefs stressed that they adamantly back the agreement, insisting that Israel is prepared to deal with the security consequences.

They also argued that Hamas has an interest in abiding by the terms of the first phase to reach the second, when it will be able to secure the release of far more prisoners in exchange for the remaining living Israeli hostages.

“The IDF knows how to return fighting with massive strength if necessary,” Channel 12 quoted IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi as having said.

During the first phase, Israel and Hamas are supposed to hold negotiations regarding the terms of the second phase during which the remaining living hostages will be released. The mediators will serve as guarantors to ensure that the parties remain at the table until an agreement on the second phase is reached, allowing the ceasefire to extend. The second phase would conclude with a permanent ceasefire.

Israelis mixed on whether the deal will last, but want it to

A survey aired by the Kan public broadcaster Friday evening showed a majority of the Israeli public supports continuing the hostage deal into the second phase.

Fifty-five percent of the public wants the deal to continue, even though that means ending the war, according to the poll. Twenty-seven percent of the public believes the war should resume after the first phase while 18% say they don’t know.

Netanyahu had previously pledged to continue the war until Hamas’s military and governing capabilities have been dismantled. He has reportedly indicated to his far-right coalition partners that he still plans to do so after the first phase.

The Kan poll also showed that 62% of the public supports the deal thus far, compared to 18% who are opposed and 20% who said they are undecided.

Protesters gather at the Begin Gate of the Kirya, Israel’s military headquarters, in Tel Aviv, to urge the government to approve a hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas, on January 16, 2025. (Pro-Democracy Movement/Yael Gadot)

Even among coalition voters, 45% of respondents support the deal, compared to 30% who oppose it.

However, 46% of coalition voters believe that Israel should resume fighting in the second phase, in apparent violation of the deal’s terms and at the expense of the hostages slated to be released then. Thirty-five percent of coalition voters back continuing the deal into the second phase and 19% of them said they don’t know.

Forty percent of the public thinks there’s a medium chance that the deal will extend into the second phase while 23% think there’s a low chance that it will and 21% think there’s a high chance. Sixteen percent said they were unsure.

Asked which party was responsible for the fact that it took nearly 470 days to reach the agreement, 36% said it was Hamas, 25% said it was Israel, 22% said both sides equally while 17% said they didn’t know.

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