The Gaza Fire Termination Deal hits a critical moment

Where next? The first six -week phase of the cessation of Gaza’s fire ends on Saturday.

The 42nd days of January 19 see their fair share of uncertainty, hope, grief and anger, but everything that had to happen during this time.

Israeli hostages were issued – the living and the dead. Palestinian prisoners are released.

But negotiations on the second phase, including the release of all other living hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli Gaza troops, have barely started.

The conversations opened in Cairo on Friday, but Israel’s delegation returned home.

The reports suggest that the negotiations will continue “off” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should have negotiations on a late night with the delegation, senior ministers and intelligence chiefs.

For such a meeting to be held late Saturday, it was extremely unusual. But no details have been posted from mid -morning on Saturday.

Israel seems to seek to extend the current phase for another six weeks to return more hostages and release more Palestinian prisoners, but without withdrawing its troops.

The government here is adamant that Hamas, the group responsible for the massacre of October 7, 2023 and the taking of 251 hostages, must put his weapons and give up any form of authority in the Gaza Strip.

Israel also says he is not yet ready to leave the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egypt -Gaza border – a process that was supposed to start on Saturday.

In a statement sent to reporters on Friday, an unnamed Israeli official said: “We will not allow Hamas killers to wander with our borders with pickups and weapons and we will not allow them to be transmitted through smuggling.”

Such anonymous quotes are often thought to come directly from the Prime Minister’s office.

Last summer, efforts to ensure that fire in Gaza fell apart when Netanyahu insisted on preserving the Israeli troops located along the corridor Philadelphi.

On Friday night, Hamas said he would not agree to the expansion of the first phase without guarantees from US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators that the phase would ultimately take place.

Hamas seems to be determined to remain in gas, even if it can be ready to convey the daily management of other Palestinian participants, including the Palestinian power -based power.

Egypt is working on a plan for the reconstruction of Gaza as an alternative to Donald Trump’s proposal to overcome the area and evacuate his entire civilian population.

But Western diplomats are not optimistic that the plan to be opened at the Arab League summit in Cairo next Tuesday has the type of stable security and management arrangements that will be needed to respond to Israeli demands.

This is a critical moment.

For all emotional turmoil over the last few weeks, the Israelis are expecting the gradual release of hostages. It is believed to have 24 lives, still waiting to be released, with another 39 supposed to be dead.

The Israelis desperately want them to everyone, without the type of propaganda displays that have disgusted and angered the whole country.

If the whole process is now enough, public anger – in Hamas and their own government – will grow. Later street protests are planned, including one on Saturday night in the place in Tel Aviv, which all Israelis now know as a hostage square.

“We require the return of all 59 remaining hostages until the 50th day of the agreement,” reads the invitation from the hostages and the missing families forum.

“Now is our only window of opportunities – we will not get another one.”

UN Secretary -General Antonio Guterres weighed, calling on the countries “not to suffer any effort to avoid a breakdown of this deal.”

There is a widespread belief that sooner or later the war will start again.

This is a gloomy perspective for the hostages and for two million Palestinians in Gaza, who are trying to bring their lives together in the current, fragile peace.

In a place where families are still digging bodies from the ruins, sometimes with their bare hands, the thought of resuming a conflict, which has already taken tens of thousands of lives, is freezing.

The areas in the midst of the Gaza Strip, which have escaped from the worst of the conflict, will probably suffer badly from any return to the war, which will make it even more difficult to maintain life in this devastated strip of land.