ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Just a day after an Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement was announced, the two sides returned to quarreling over the details. The deal is still on, but the dispute demonstrates how difficult it's likely to be to keep it on track. NPR's Greg Myre is in Tel Aviv. Hi, Greg.
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: What's the stumbling block here?
MYRE: Yeah, Israel's cabinet needs to approve the deal and was expected to meet and do so today. But the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas was reneging on part of the deal. Now, it didn't specify what part. Hamas said this wasn't true. It's still committed to the agreement. The net result was the Israeli cabinet didn't meet. A session is now planned for Friday. One far-right Israeli party is voting against it and threatening to resign. It calls the deal a surrender to Hamas. But the agreement is expected to comfortably pass.
SHAPIRO: And in the meantime, fighting is continuing in Gaza, right?
MYRE: That's right - some pretty heavy Israeli airstrikes yesterday and today. More than 80 Palestinians have been killed and more than 200 injured in the past two days, according to Palestinian health officials. Now, Israel acknowledged hitting around 50 targets in Gaza. It says one of them was a Hamas militant who took part in the October 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel that launched this war. And, Ari, we've certainly seen this in the past, where quite intense shooting takes place when a ceasefire is just about to take effect.
SHAPIRO: So when is the earliest a ceasefire deal might go into effect?
MYRE: Well, Sunday looks like it would be the first day. And we should stress this is a process that, even if it goes as planned, will play out over many weeks. It's not going to happen in a day. This first phase of the deal alone lasts six weeks. Hamas is obligated to release 33 of the 98 hostages in Gaza. Israel will free about a thousand prisoners during this period, and aid is supposed to surge into Gaza. But the hostages won't all be freed until a second phase. Some Israeli troops will remain in Gaza for many weeks to come.
And then, even if everything is still moving along, we'll get to the really hard stuff. Who's going to rule Gaza after the Israeli troops leave? Who's going to pay for the rebuilding of the territory? So far, no clear answers to these very tough questions.
SHAPIRO: You know, President-elect Trump called for a ceasefire deal before taking office, and it's now happening just days before his inauguration. Did his statements help drive this process?
MYRE: Well, Trump certainly believes so, and he said so on social media. No one here is saying that explicitly, but there seems to be some, certainly, circumstantial evidence. He did send his envoy, Steve Witkoff, to take part with diplomats from the Biden administration in the final days of these negotiations in the gulf country of Qatar. And, you know, in taking credit, Trump is also assuming responsibility. It will be his ceasefire deal to manage come Monday.
And there may be some irony here, Ari. It's kind of a reversal from the presidential transition four years ago. Trump made a deal in 2020 with the Taliban for U.S. troops to leave Afghanistan. President Biden inherited that agreement. And when he withdrew the U.S. troops, it turned into a real fiasco. Trump will inherit the Gaza ceasefire agreement, and there will be challenging days ahead.
Remember, seven U.S. citizens are among the hostages held in Gaza. At least some of them are believed to be alive. So the U.S. has been involved in trying to resolve this conflict, and its role won't end just because there's a ceasefire deal.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Greg Myre in Tel Aviv. Thank you.
MYRE: Sure thing, Ari. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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