Hamas spokesman: We will not renegotiate Gaza ceasefire

Hazem Qassem, a senior spokesperson for Hamas, says the group’s decision to release Israeli-American soldier Idan Alexander from captivity was a “positive gesture”.

He said this was not intended to signal that Hamas is open to renegotiating the Gaza ceasefire.

“We are not talking about new or side agreements but rather moving forward with implementing the truce agreement in its various stages,” he said.

Pro-Palestine students lead mass march in New York in support of Khalil

Pro-Palestine students are leading a large march this evening from Columbia University in Manhattan, New York, to demand the release of Palestinian student Mahmoud Khalil and to denounce the university’s decision to expel students supporting Palestine.

The students raised pictures and banners in support of Khalil and

80,000 Palestinians perform Ramadan prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque

More  than 80,000 worshippers have performed Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, according to the Islamic Waqf Department, despite restrictions imposed by the Israeli military on movement from the West Bank.

The majority of those attending the second Friday prayer of the holy month of Ramadan were Palestinians living in Israel, as its military capped the number of permits for worshippers traveling from the West Bank to Islam’s third holiest site.

Only men over the age of 55 or women 50 or older are allowed to enter the mosque, and all must have a valid permit, making the site inaccessible to the vast majority of Palestinians.

Palestinians getting hurt while visiting damaged Gaza homes

Dr  Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon with MedGlobal, says civilians returning to their damaged homes to retrieve items or clean up are sustaining severe injuries from structures crashing down.

“The buildings are so damaged they’re collapsing on them. Just two days ago, we had a young man – a wall fell on him, broke his spine, and tore his left kidney off his aorta,” he told Al Jazeera outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

“So we had to remove his left kidney or he would have bled to death.”

Sidhwa said with high prices at markets and aid running out “people are turning on each other sometimes and disputes are becoming violent.”

He said surgeries are limited now because of the lack of medical supplies.

“We don’t have the proper hardware. We’re reusing things we shouldn’t reuse. We have some things that are inappropriate, but we use them anyway because it’s the only thing that is available, and this is resulting in a lot of extra mortality.”

Young Palestinian killed following Israeli raid near Nablus

A young Palestinian man died after being wounded in an Israeli army raid in Salem, a town east of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, Wafa reports, quoting local sources.

Amer Dawoud Shtayyeh, 21, was rushed to hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after, the agency said.

Sources told Wafa that Israeli forces stormed the town, triggering confrontations.

Soldiers fired barrages of live ammunition and tear gas canisters, critically wounding a 21-year-old in the head, the agency said. They also briefly detained a minor.

Hamas says Israel’s attempts to sabotage Gaza deal will not succeed

Hamas  spokesperson Abdel-Latif al-Qanoua has told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that mediators are making “strenuous efforts” in the talks despite Israel’s attempts to sabotage it, apparently referring to Qatar and Egypt.

“We are working with the mediators to ensure the success of the negotiations, compel the occupation, and complete the agreement’s stages,” he said.

“We hope that the results of the negotiations will ensure the implementation of all stages of the agreement.”

Settlers fire live ammunition, use tear gas in attack on West Bank village: Residents

Israeli settlers, who took part in a previously reported attack on the Palestinian village of Khirbet al-Marajim in the occupied West Bank, burned down three houses and a number of cars.

Local residents told the Reuters news agency they fired live ammunition and hurled tear gas bombs at people trying to put out the flames in the latest in a series of raids that have surged during the war on Gaza.

CCTV footage showed masked individuals entering Palestinians’ property, throwing objects around and destroying a security camera.

“They climbed on top of the house and started to throw stones,” resident Maysoom Msalam told the agency.

“They broke the door and the windows. Then they burnt this door and entered and set fire inside the house.”

Ghassan Daghlas, governor of the nearby city of Nablus, dismissed suggestions that Palestinians had provoked the attack.

“This is an attack aimed at expelling citizens from their lands by settlers, a project to displace Palestinians from their lands,” he told Reuters.

Hamas says negotiating team heads to Cairo

The negotiating delegation of Hamas, led by Khalil al-Hayya, is going to Cairo to meet with Egyptian officials, according to a statement on the group’s Telegram.

They will follow up on developments in the negotiations and the ceasefire agreement, the brief statement added.

The 42 days since 19 January have seen their fair share of uncertainty, hope, grief and anger, but everything that should have happened in that time has.

Israeli hostages – the living and the dead – have been released. Palestinian prisoners set free.

But negotiations on phase two, including the release of all remaining living hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, have barely begun.

Talks opened in Cairo on Friday but Israel’s delegation returned home in the evening.

Reports suggested that negotiations would continue “at a distance” and that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to hold late-night talks with the delegation, senior ministers and intelligence chiefs.

For such a meeting to take place late on the sabbath was highly unusual. But as of mid-morning on Saturday, no details have been released.

Israel appears to be looking to extend the current phase for another six weeks, to get more hostages back and release more Palestinian prisoners but without withdrawing its troops.

The government here is adamant that Hamas, the group responsible for the massacres of 7 October 2023 and the taking of 251 hostages, has to lay down its arms and relinquish any form of authority in the Gaza Strip.

Israel also says it is not yet ready to leave the Philadelphi corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border – a process that should have begun on Saturday.

In a statement sent to reporters on Friday, an unnamed Israeli official said: “We will not allow the Hamas murderers to again roam our borders with pickup trucks and guns, and we will not allow them to rearm through smuggling.”

Such anonymous quotes are often believed to come directly from the prime minister’s office.

Last summer, efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza faltered when Netanyahu insisted on keeping Israeli troops stationed along the Philadelphi corridor.

On Friday night, Hamas said it would not agree to any extension of phase one without guarantees from American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators that phase two would eventually take place.

Hamas seems determined to remain a force in Gaza, even if it might be willing to hand over day-to-day governance to other Palestinian actors, including the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.

Egypt has been working on a reconstruction plan for Gaza, as an alternative to Donald Trump’s proposal to take the area over and evacuate its entire civilian population.

But Western diplomats are not optimistic that the plan, due to be unveiled at an Arab League summit in Cairo next Tuesday, has the sort of robust security and governance arrangements that will be needed to meet Israeli demands.

This is a critical moment.

For all the emotional turmoil of the last few weeks, Israelis have come to expect the gradual release of hostages. There are believed to be 24 alive, still waiting to be freed, with another 39 presumed to be dead.

Israelis desperately want them all back, without the sort of propaganda displays that have disgusted and infuriated the entire country.

If the whole process now grinds to a halt, public anger – at Hamas and their own government – will mount. Further street protests are planned, including one on Saturday night in the place in Tel Aviv that all Israelis now know as Hostages Square.

“We demand the return of all 59 remaining hostages by day 50 of the agreement,” reads the invitation from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum HQ.

“Now is our only window of opportunity – we won’t get another.”

UN Secretary General António Guterres has weighed in, urging the parties “to spare no effort to avoid a breakdown of this deal”.

There’s a widespread belief that, sooner or later, the war will begin again.

It’s a bleak prospect, for the hostages and for two million Palestinians in Gaza who are trying to put their lives back together in the current, fragile peace.

In a place where families are still digging bodies from the rubble, sometimes with their bare hands, the thought of a resumption of a conflict which has already claimed tens of thousands of lives is chilling.

Areas in the middle of the Gaza Strip that have so far escaped the worst of the conflict would likely suffer badly from any return to war, making it even harder to sustain life in this ravaged strip of land.

“Our Shiri was murdered in captivity and has now returned home,” the family said in a statement. Israel’s forensic officials who have been examining the body are yet to confirm the identification.

Remains handed over by Hamas on Thursday which it said were that of Shiri Bibas turned out to be an unidentified woman, Israel said.

It comes as six living hostages are due to be handed over by Hamas later on Saturday as part of a ceasefire deal. More than 600 Palestinian prisoners will be freed by Israel in exchange.

The Bibas family said: “For 16 months, we sought certainty, and now that we have it, there is no comfort in it, but we hope for the beginning of a closure.”

Hamas previously said the mother and her two children were killed in an Israeli air strike.

Earlier, a senior Hamas official confirmed to the BBC that the handover of the new body from Hamas to the Red Cross had taken place on Friday evening.

Israel had accused Hamas of breaking the terms of the ceasefire deal after forensic testing showed the remains handed over on Thursday were not that of Shiri Bibas.

The bodies of her sons, Ariel and Kfir, were returned to Israel, as was that of another hostage, Oded Lifschitz.

Hamas spokesman Ismail al-Thawabta said in a post on X on Friday that Shiri’s remains seemed to have been mixed up with other bodies under rubble after the air strike.

Israel has disputed the claim that Ariel and Kfir Bibas were killed in an airstrike, with Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Daniel Hagari telling a press conference “forensic findings”, which have not been seen by the BBC, suggested the boys had been killed “deliberately”.

He said evidence had been shared with “partners around the world so they can verify it”.

Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas were aged 32, four and nine months respectively when they were kidnapped during the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023.

They were taken hostage along with the children’s father, Yarden Bibas, 34, who was released alive by Hamas on 1 February.

In the 7 October attacks, about 1,200 people – mostly civilians – were killed and 251 others taken back to Gaza as hostages.

In response, Israel launched a massive military campaign against Hamas which has killed at least 48,319 Palestinians – mainly civilians – according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.

Israeli ministers said some troops would remain inside Lebanon to protect Israel’s northern communities.

In response, Lebanon said Israel must withdraw completely. It said it would consider “the continued Israeli presence in any inch of Lebanese territory an occupation”.

The ceasefire requires Israel to withdraw and for Lebanon’s army to replace all armed groups south of the Litani River, about 30km (20 miles) north of Israel.

Hezbollah was the dominant force in the area for decades, but was heavily damaged in the conflict, the deadliest fought with Israel since the militant group was formed in 1982.

Lebanese authorities say more than 3,960 people – many of them civilians – were killed during the hostilities, and one million others were displaced from areas where Hezbollah had a strong presence.

Israeli authorities say more than 80 Israeli soldiers and 47 civilians were killed. About 60,000 citizens were displaced from northern Israel.

Most of those displaced in Lebanon have returned home, the UN says, while only a minority of those displaced in Israel have done so, according to reports.

The positions where Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops have been deployed are in mountainous terrain on the edge of the internationally recognised border between Lebanon and Israel.

On Tuesday Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the IDF was “temporarily remaining in five strategic high points”. He added that this was “necessary for our security”.

“Once Lebanon fully implements its side of the deal, there will be no need to hold these points,” he told a news conference in Jerusalem.

Lebanese soldiers moved into the areas vacated by Israeli troops and began clearing roadblocks and checking for unexploded ordnance, the Associated Press news agency reported on Tuesday.

It said some villagers pushed their way through to get back to their homes, many of which were blown up in the conflict.

“I am very happy I am going back even if I find my home destroyed,” said Atef Arabi, 36, who was returning to the village of Kfar Kila with his wife and two daughters. “If I find my house destroyed I will rebuild it.”

Israel’s withdrawal had been postponed from the original 60-day deadline – which fell on 26 January – stipulated in the ceasefire.

In a social-media post on Tuesday, Mr Katz said: “The IDF’s enforcement activities against Hezbollah will continue at full strength. We will not allow a return to the reality of 7 October [2023]” – referring to the date when Palestinian Hamas gunmen carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel from Gaza.

Hezbollah had launched its military campaign against Israel the following day, saying it was acting in solidarity with the Palestinians.

The three hostages handed over on Saturday are American-Israeli Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36, Argentinian-Israeli Yair Horn, 46, and Russian-Israeli Alexander Troufanov, 29.

In return, 369 Palestinians held in Israeli jails were released.

So far 19 hostages held in Gaza and more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners have been freed as part of the Gaza ceasefire that began on 19 January 2025.

By the end of the first six-week stage of the deal, 33 hostages and 1,900 prisoners are expected to have been freed.

On Saturday, in the sixth swap since last month, Israeli hostages were handed over in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

Surrounded by heavily armed Hamas militants, the men briefly addressed a crowd of Palestinians before being transferred into Red Cross vehicles.

They did not look as gaunt as the hostages freed a week earlier – their appearance had aroused anger in Israel and elsewhere.

Yair Horn and his brother Eitan, 37, were both abducted from a kibbutz during the 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas. Eitan Horn remains in captivity in Gaza.

The three men were airlifted by military helicopters to a hospital in central Israel where they will undergo medical tests and be reunited with relatives.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog, posting on social media, said the hostages had been “forced to endure” a “despicable and cynical ceremony”.

The majority of the freed Palestinians were taken to Gaza, although some were taken to the West Bank. In both areas, crowds gathered to welcome the former prisoners.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society told the BBC that five of those released in the West Bank city of Ramallah were taken straight to hospital.

“They all have chronic illnesses,” said Mohammad Faqih, an official from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, adding that one man had a broken leg.

Most of the 36 Palestinians serving life sentences will reportedly be deported to Egypt.

Earlier this week, Hamas threatened to delay the hostage release after accusing Israel of violating the terms of the agreement, something Israel denied.

Israel, backed by US President Donald Trump, said “intense” fighting would resume unless the hostages were handed over.

The latest releases mean that under the ceasefire, Hamas is due to free another 14 hostages.

However Israel says eight are of them are dead, meaning six living Israelis are still expected to be returned in the first phase.

A total of 141 hostages have now been freed, including 81 Israelis and 24 foreign nationals released as part of a previous deal between Israel and Hamas.

About 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken back to Gaza as hostages when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023.

This triggered a massive Israeli military offensive in Gaza, which has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

Israel had kept troops deployed in Lebanon beyond the initial deadline, accusing the Lebanese government of not fully implementing its part of the deal, which required the removal of Hezbollah from the area.

On Sunday, the Lebanese health ministry said Israeli soldiers killed 22 people and wounded 124 others who were trying to return to their homes in the country’s south.

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati says, following contact from the US, the truce will now remain in place until 18 February.

The initial ceasefire plan, announced in late November, brought an end to 14 months of conflict between Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

Brokered by the US and France, the agreement gave Hezbollah 60 days to end its armed presence in southern Lebanon and required Israeli forces to withdraw over the same period.

Announcing the plan, then-US President Joe Biden said it was “designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities” between the two sides.

But on Friday, with two days to go before the deadline, Israel said some soldiers would remain in the region as the ceasefire agreement was “yet to be fully enforced by the Lebanese state”.

A White House statement on Sunday said the deadline has now been moved to 18 February, and that negotiations will begin for the return of Lebanese prisoners captured after 7 October 2023.

Thousands of Lebanese residents have returned to towns and villages near the border since the deal was agreed, despite warnings that the region was still unsafe.

On Sunday, the Lebanese health ministry said 22 people had been killed by Israeli soldiers in the area.

The Israeli military said it had fired “warning shots in multiple areas”, without specifying if people had been hit, and apprehended several people it claimed posed an “imminent threat”.

The longstanding conflict between Israel and Hezbollah – an Iranian-backed militant, political and social movement – escalated last September. This lead to an intense Israeli air campaign across Lebanon, a ground invasion of the country’s south, and the assassination of Hezbollah’s senior leaders.

The offensive killed around 4,000 people in Lebanon – including many civilians – and led more than 1.2 million residents to be displaced.

Israel’s stated goal was to allow the return of around 60,000 residents who had fled from communities in the country’s north because of Hezbollah’s attacks, and to remove the group from areas along the border.

Hezbollah launched its campaign the day after the Hamas attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, saying it was acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

“This was the first time the hospital reception or the emergency department was empty,” Salaha, a general practitioner at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, told Al Jazeera on Monday.

A day earlier, the ceasefire had halted 471 days of relentless Israeli attacks that killed more than 47,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 111,000.

Salaha had just started working at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital when the war erupted in October 2023.

He worked in the neurosurgery department for 33 days before being forced to relocate to Al-Aqsa Hospital due to Israeli attacks.

Throughout Israel’s war on Gaza, Salaha said he had only three days off work and treated people under harrowing conditions.

“Every day we received wounded people, most of them in critical condition,” he said. “We did a lot of surgeries, … including some on the floor because we did not have enough capacity. We [often] operated without gloves, without enough medication and no ventilators.”

When the ceasefire was announced, Salaha described it as “unbelievable” news and said he could finally sleep more soundly again.

But he remains cautious about the future, citing the scale of the devastation across the Gaza Strip, the breakdown of its health system and the possibility of violence reigniting.

“There is joy and excitement [over the ceasefire] everywhere, and people think that this ceasefire will bring life back to normal. But this is not true,” Salaha said. “The state of the hospitals is very chaotic.”

“We need a lot of medicines and medical supplies in order to deal with all [the remaining] cases.”

The World Health Organization said on Monday that only half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially operational.

Nearly all hospitals are damaged and just 38 percent of primary healthcare centres are functional, it added.

In most parts of the coastal enclave, the ceasefire appeared to be holding despite reports of isolated incidents of violence.

At least eight people have been injured by Israeli forces in Rafah in the south, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.

Mohammad Nemnem, a medical worker at the now out-of-service Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, described the scale of the damage after Israeli forces had “burned and destroyed” the facility.

“No department in the hospital can offer any medical service,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The hospital needs massive efforts and a lot of time to be a hospital again that can provide people with medical services.”

“The prime minister instructed the IDF that the ceasefire, which is supposed to go into effect at 8:30am, will not begin until Israel has the list of released abductees that Hamas has pledged to provide,” his office said in a statement on Sunday.

 a statement shortly afterwards, Hamas blamed the delay in handing over the names on “technical field reasons”, and said it was committed to the ceasefire deal announced last week.

The Israeli military’s chief spokesman Daniel Hagari reiterated the announcement from Netanyahu’s office, saying the truce would not begin until Hamas hands over the names of the three hostages set to be released on Sunday.

Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, reporting from Amman, the Jordanian capital, said there was “so much international pressure” on both Hamas and Israel, it would be “very difficult” to see how the ceasefire, particularly the first phase, does not go ahead.

“Will there be some delays potentially at this point in time? I’m pretty sure Qatar will be putting incredible pressure on Hamas, if indeed these names haven’t yet been handed over, to do so,” she said.

“But  Hamas has reiterated it is committed to the ceasefire, and then it will hand these names over as soon as they can.”

Netanyahu’s  warning came hours after his speech in which he said Israel retained the right to resume war in Gaza, and that it had the backing of the United States to do so if the second stage of the ceasefire is fruitless.

The 42-day first phase of the ceasefire should see a total of 33 captives returned from Gaza and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners released by Israel.

Israeli forces should pull back into a buffer zone inside Gaza, and many displaced Palestinians should be able to return home. The devastated territory should also see a surge in humanitarian aid.

This is going to be only the second halt in the war, proposed to be longer and more consequential than the weeklong pause more than a year ago, with the potential to end the fighting for good

Negotiations on the far more difficult second phase of this ceasefire should begin in about two weeks. Key questions remain, including whether the war will resume after the six-week first phase and how the rest of the nearly 100 captives in Gaza will be freed.

Israel’s cabinet approved the ceasefire on Saturday in a rare session during the Jewish Sabbath, more than two days after mediators announced the deal.

The warring sides were under pressure from both the outgoing Biden administration and President-elect Donald Trump to achieve a deal before the US presidential inauguration on Monday.

In a televised speech just hours before it was due to start on Sunday, Netanyahu stressed that the ceasefire was “temporary” and Israel reserved the right to resume strikes in Gaza – and had the backing of US President-elect Donald Trump to do so.

Netanyahu also outlined what he called the success of Israel’s military campaign over the last 15 months – including the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

“We changed the face of the Middle East,” Netanyahu said, before adding that Hamas was now “completely alone”.

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The ceasefire is due to come into force at 08:30 local time (06:30 GMT).

Prior to Saturday’s speech, Netanyahu said Israel would not implement the deal until it received the list of hostages to be released by Hamas.

“Israel will not tolerate violations of the agreement,” he said.

A longer list of the 33 hostages due to be freed by Hamas has already been published by Israeli media but not confirmed by officials.

But Israeli authorities say they have yet to receive the names of the three hostages due to be released on Sunday.

Meanwhile Israel has continued air strikes on what they say are Hamas and Islamic Jihad sites in Gaza – more than 120 people have been killed since the deal was announced on Wednesday, Hamas officials say.

Over the next few weeks, the 33 hostages are set to be released in exchange for 1,890 Palestinian prisoners. Under terms of the agreement, Israel will also begin pulling back its forces from Gaza.

The location at which the first hostages will be handed over is unclear. A senior Israeli military official said three reception points had been prepared near the border in northern, central, and southern Gaza.

Previously, a source close to Hamas told the AFP news agency that the first three hostages to be released would be women.

Talks about the terms of the second phase of the ceasefire are set to start on Day 16 of the first phase and will focus on achieving “a permanent end to the war”.

Details of the second phase of the deal are still uncertain but the expectation is that remaining hostages, including men, would be freed at this stage as more Palestinian prisoners detained in Israeli prisons are released.

There would also be a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. It is also understood that Hamas police – who will be unarmed unless absolutely necessary – will manage the return of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza

The third and final stage will involve the reconstruction of Gaza – something which could take many years – and the return of any remaining hostages’ bodies.

On Friday night, Israel’s government approved the ceasefire and hostage release deal after hours of discussions.

Two far-right cabinet ministers voted against it, including national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The drawn-out structure of the agreement is also causing anxiety and division among the families of the hostages. Some fear relatives will be abandoned in Gaza after the first phase is done.

On Saturday evening, thousands of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv to demand the government ensures the release of further hostages by abiding by the first phase of the ceasefire.

Gal Alkalay, a member of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, told Reuters news agency: “We could have saved the lives of 200 soldiers and more than 10 hostages.” She added that people had died unnecessarily because the government “couldn’t take a decision and waited for Trump”.

Earlier on Saturday, several people were wounded in a stabbing attack near a restaurant In Tel Aviv, Israeli police said. The attacker was reportedly shot and killed at the scene by a civilian.

The suspect came to Tel Aviv “illegally” from Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank, Israeli media said.

There has been no respite for Palestinians on the ground in Gaza since the ceasefire deal was announced on Wednesday night.

The Palestinian health ministry said 123 people – including dozens of women and children – have been killed in strikes since then.

On Saturday, Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defence rescue agency said at least five members of one family were killed when a strike hit their tent in Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, AFP reports.

Since Thursday afternoon, the Israeli military said it had struck 100 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters who were among several “terror targets” hit across Gaza, according to the Reuters news agency.

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas – which is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US and others – in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

Around 46,899 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. Most of the 2.3 million population has also been displaced, there is widespread destruction, and there are severe shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter due to a struggle to get aid to those in need.

In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera on Friday, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said he now expects “the [UN] Security Council to issue a binding resolution to implement the [ceasefire] agreement.

Wednesday, Qatar, Egypt and the United States announced that Hamas and Israel have reached a multiphased deal to halt the war in Gaza and exchange Israeli captives held in the Strip for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

The mediators said the ceasefire in Gaza will go into effect on Sunday. The first phase of the agreement is spread over seven weeks and will see a surge in humanitarian aid, gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces, and the release of Israeli captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. The second phase is expected to begin in March, provided the first phase runs smoothly according to Israel.

The Israeli cabinet is expected to ratify the ceasefire deal later on Friday.

Sheikh  Mohammed noted that Qatar and Egypt played an important role as mediators in the truce talks. He said the joint work of the outgoing Biden administration and members of incoming President-elect Donald Trump’s team were decisive in reaching the ceasefire agreement in Gaza.

He stressed however that Qatar’s position is only a mediator and said “the administration of Gaza after the war is a Palestinian matter.”

Sheikh Mohammed also highlighted the importance of mobilising international support for Gaza and establishing mechanisms to support affected families.

“A humanitarian protocol has been reached regarding the mechanism for delivering aid to prevent blackmail,” he said.

Sanctions ‘not logical’

Besides negotiating a ceasefire deal in Gaza, Qatar is also focused on bolstering relations with Syria’s new de facto administration led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group led the opposition offensive that toppled Syria’s longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad last month.

Sheikh Mohammed met al-Sharaa in Damascus on Thursday and called for sanctions imposed on Syria to be lifted.

“We have been making efforts to lift the sanctions from the first day of the [Assad] regime’s fall, and we do not want Syria to collapse,” Sheikh Mohammed said.

“The sanctions were imposed on the Assad regime and are not logical now. The new administration is not expected to address international concerns and work for its people under sanctions simultaneously,” he added.

The US and European Union both imposed sanctions on al-Assad and his government for allegedly committing crimes during the war, which began after security forces cracked down on pro-democracy protesters in 2011.

Washington and Brussels have not yet made a decision on lifting these sanctions but have begun signalling their interest in cooperating with the new Syrian administration.

Sheikh Mohammed also criticised Israeli moves to occupy the territory near the Golan Heights in southern Syria.

“We reject Israel’s reckless act of incursion in the buffer zone in Syria. We talked with Ahmad al-Sharaa and affirmed the necessity of Israeli withdrawal and that the incursion should not create a new reality,” he said.

Israel deployed military units last month to the buffer zone, which lies along the Golan Heights and separates Syria and Israel, after al-Assad was toppled. The area has been an officially designated demilitarised zone as part of a 1974 UN-brokered ceasefire.