Rifts with Hamas and a far-right minister’s threat to resign complicated progress toward the Israeli cabinet’s vote on the deal, which includes the release of hostages.

A new report published in the U.K. medical journal The Lancet indicates that far from exaggerating the human suffering in Gaza, the ministry has likely underestimated the true number of the dead by as much as 41 percent.

Three officials from the U.S. and one from Hamas confirmed that a deal had been reached, while the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said final details were still being ironed out.

Israel’s leaders claimed the right to self-defence against Hamas, but as Omer Bartov, a major historian of the Holocaust, recognised in August 2024, they sought from the very beginning “to make the entire Gaza Strip uninhabitable,

Chaos erupted at Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s final press conference Thursday after an announced Israel-Hamas cease-fire and hostage deal, with State Department employees forcibly removing reporters who accused the cabinet official of allowing a “genocide” in Gaza.

Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have meanwhile killed at least ... The International Criminal Court, a separate body also based in The Hague, has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu ...

Israel says it has killed thousands of the armed group’s members and destroyed much of its infrastructure, but since the cease-fire started Hamas has shown it still holds power in the enclave.

Fighters from the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, control the crowd while Red Cross vehicles come to collect Israeli hostages to be released under a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abed Hajjar, File)

President Trump’s Middle East envoy said he would soon travel there and be part of a team of “outside observers” to ensure safety during the days-old ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. Nick Schifrin reports on the relative quiet in Gaza and what people are finding as they return home.

Benjamin Netanyahu has warned he reserves the right to restart the war in Gaza with the backing of the United States if he is not satisfied with Hamas’ handling of the ceasefire deal.It came after he said Israel will not proceed with the ceasefire until he receives a list of the 33 hostages who will be released by Hamas in the first phase.

The Israeli government has approved a ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas, leading to a possible end to 15 months of a devastating war in Gaza that spread to other parts of the Middle East.