Gaza ceasefire deal hangs in balance, as Israel begins striking Rafah

The Gaza ceasefire proposal that Hamas accepted earlier Monday proposal from Egypt and Qatar is hanging in the balance, as Israel launched strikes on targets in eastern Rafah.

The Netanyahu government said the proposal failed to meet the requirements and said they were pushing ahead with a military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where earlier in the day it had ordered an evacuation of tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians, reports npr.org.

“The War Cabinet unanimously took the decision Israel will continue its operation in Rafah, to apply military pressure on Hamas,” read a statement from Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

Egyptian officials who were close to the ceasefire deal talks with Hamas, on the condition of anonymity, told NPR that the Palestinian movement agreed to a draft which had been modified over the weekend.

No Israeli delegation took part in the talks held in Cairo.

The government of Israel on Monday said it would send a delegation to negotiate “an agreement under conditions acceptable to Israel.”

The news of Hamas accepting the ceasefire deal — as the war moves on to the seventh month — had briefly raised hopes of the war coming to a pause, if not an end.

Upon hearing the news, relatives of some of the 132 Israeli hostages in Gaza took out a rally in central Tel Aviv.

Meanwhile, in Gaza, people celebrated on the streets after the news of the acceptance of the ceasefire deal spread across the city that has been tarnished by war.

The Egyptian officials told NPR that the ceasefire deal includes three phases.

The first would be the release of a small number of hostages who were taken from Israel on the October 7 attack, in exchange for a six-week ceasefire. The second would be a six-week truce. And finally, the third phase would be a guarantee by the US of an end to the war.