Palestinians in Gaza City. The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has held for almost a week now - but the deal rests on shaky ground, with a number of unresolved issues. Photo / Saher Alghorra, The New York Times
The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has held for more than a week.
Yet each side has accused the other of violating the agreement, which rests on shaky ground, and there are unresolved issues that put the future of the truce at risk.
Today Israel launched its heaviest wave of attacks on the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire took hold on October 10. It said it had temporarily suspended humanitarian aid.
Israel accused Hamas of violating the agreement by targeting and killing two soldiers.
Gaza’s health officials reported 44 Palestinian deaths across the enclave today.
Still, Israel and Hamas said that they were still committed to maintaining the truce.
Here is where things stand.
Violence flares up
Though the fighting between Israel and Hamas has largely abated, the Israeli military says its troops have acted in the face of imminent threats and in response to attacks.
Israel said two of its soldiers had been killed in a Palestinian militant attack.
According to Israel, Palestinian fighters fired an anti-tank missile at Israeli troops and then shot at them in the Rafah area of southern Gaza, which remains under Israeli control.
The Israelis called the incident “a blatant violation” of the truce, and said their forces had struck in the area “to eliminate the threat” and dismantle tunnel shafts and other military structures.
In a statement, Hamas’ military wing said it was “unaware” of clashes in the Rafah area and had lost contact with fighters there months ago.
In a separate statement, a Hamas official, Izzat al-Rishq, accused Israel of violating the truce and of fabricating “flimsy pretexts” to justify its attacks.
After attacking Hamas targets, the Israeli military said it had “begun the renewed enforcement of the ceasefire”.
Yesterday, the military said it had fired on a vehicle in northern Gaza a day earlier after it crossed into territory under Israeli control and posed a threat to soldiers.
At least nine people were killed, including four children, according to Gaza’s Civil Defence emergency service, which is part of the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.
A Gaza City resident, Mohammad Abu Shaban, said his sister and three of her children had been killed in the vehicle, along with her husband. Abu Shaban said he identified their bodies at a hospital in the city before their funeral.
The car, he said, was carrying a dozen members of the same extended family. The family believes that the people in the car got lost and mistakenly entered a dangerous area, he said.
The Israeli military did not respond to queries about the reported civilian deaths.
Increasing Aid to Gaza
On Sunday, Israel said that aid to Gaza had been halted temporarily, although the ceasefire calls for a surge in food and supplies to the enclave, where hunger is widespread.
The pause was due to the intensity of the Israeli strikes today, and aid was expected to resume once the bombing was over, according to an Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
A representative for the Israeli security agency responsible for co-ordinating aid deliveries into Gaza did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The ceasefire deal calls for a significant expansion of aid in Gaza, including the entrance of at least 600 aid trucks per day.
The United Nations has said that more aid is entering Gaza now than before the truce.
“Since the ceasefire, we have been able to bring in much more flour, yeast, and fuel for machines,” said Tom Fletcher, the UN’s top humanitarian official, posting on social media late last week from a bakery in the enclave.
He said that nine bakeries were running and new ones were opening daily, and that the UN aimed to have 30 such locations operating soon.
The UN’s humanitarian agency said in an update that aid groups had collected medical supplies, food, fuel, tents, nappies, hygiene kits, and more from two crossings, Kerem Shalom and Kissufim.
The agency said that “much more can be done once more crossings are opened” and that basic infrastructure was restored.
The return of hostage remains
Hamas has freed the last 20 living Israeli hostages and turned over the bodies of 12 captives over the past week, according to the Israeli Government.
A 13th body that Hamas handed over to Israel was found by forensic experts not to match any of the captives seized in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that set off the war.
Israel identified two dead hostages whose bodies were handed over at the weekend as Ronen Engel, 54, and Sonthaya Oakkharasri, 30, a Thai citizen who had been working in agriculture in Be’eri, a border community.
The ceasefire agreement called for Hamas to immediately return the remains of about 25 deceased hostages in Gaza.
Hamas said in a statement that the body of an additional hostage had been located and would be turned over if conditions allowed. Shortly afterward, the Israeli military began striking in Gaza, citing ceasefire violations.
The truce agreement included an acknowledgment that the destruction in Gaza would make it difficult to find all the bodies quickly and laid out a process for providing assistance to recover remains.
A joint task force, to include the United States and other mediators, is expected to pool information and help find the remains, according to three Israeli officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Hamas’ military wing said last week that it had handed over all of the remains of Israeli hostages that it had been able to recover without additional special equipment.
During a diplomatic visit to Italy last week, Gideon Saar, the Israeli Foreign Minister, accused Hamas of violating the agreement.
He said that Israel had shared its concerns with the Americans, and he expected the ceasefire mediators to help resolve the problem immediately.
The Handover of Palestinian Remains
Israel is supposed to return the bodies of 15 Palestinians in exchange for the remains of every Israeli hostage received.
By Friday, Israel had returned 120 bodies to Gaza in exchange for the 10 bodies of hostages handed over by Hamas at that point.
David Mercer, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, said the exchange mechanism in the agreement applied only to the handover of bodies of Israeli hostages.
Of the 10 bodies handed over by Hamas at that point, one was a Palestinian, and another was a Nepali citizen, and Mercer said Israel was not required to release Palestinian bodies in exchange for those.
“Israel is keeping to the deal,” he said.
Israel has freed almost 2000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the handover of the 20 living hostages last week.
In a statement today, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said it had received 15 unidentified bodies from Israel, in addition to 15 others in a previous handover, bringing the total number of deceased Palestinians turned over under the agreement to 150.
The bodies of deceased Palestinians have been given to officials at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, who have said they had received no information about who they were or how Israel had them.
They were labelled only with numbers assigned by Israel but no names, Gaza hospital officials said.
Border crossings
Israel agreed to reopen the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which has been mostly closed since the war began.
On Friday Saar said the crossing would most likely reopen today.
Yesterday Netanyahu’s office said the Rafah crossing would not open until further notice and that its opening would depend on the extent to which Hamas fulfils its commitment to turn over the remains of deceased hostages.
Aid will not enter through Rafah, however. On Friday, the Israeli military said the ceasefire deal did not call for aid to enter through that crossing, and that it would be open only for people who wished to travel between Gaza and Egypt.
The next phase of negotiations
The ceasefire deal that went into effect addressed only a handful of the points laid out by US President Donald Trump in his peace plan.
In addition to the ceasefire and exchange of hostages and prisoners, Israeli forces pulled back from parts of Gaza.
The deal left some of the most complicated issues to be negotiated at a later stage, including whether Hamas will give up its weapons, who will govern Gaza in the future and how.
Those issues will be discussed during Phase 2 talks, but it is not clear when those will begin.
An Israeli official said last week that a second round of talks would not start until the first phase was completed.
In a statement Hamas said that a top delegation had arrived in Cairo today to follow up on the implementation of the ceasefire agreement with mediators and other Palestinian groups.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Ephrat Livni and Liam Stack
Photographs by: Saher Alghorra, David Guttenfelder
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