Alelie Jade Mallari

Israel’s heavy strikes to the Gaza Strip remained continuous after President Joe Biden, prime minister of Qatar, and Hamas officials achieved a ceasefire deal, January 15.

Photo Courtesy of Reuters.

In a post from prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the temporary six-week ceasefire divided into three phases, was expected to take effect GMT 0630 on January 19.

Within the first phase of the ceasefire, Hamas is expected to release 33 out of the remaining 98 Israeli hostages captured on October 7, starting with three hostages on the first day of the ceasefire deal.

In exchange, the Israeli forces were expected to gradually withdraw from the Gaza border and release almost 2,000 of Palestinians taken as prisoners, including women, children, and elders. 

However, on January 15, hours after reaching the ceasefire deal, 46 Palestinians died as Israeli forces committed another continuous bomb strike on Gaza. 

Furthermore, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also issued a national televised address 12 hours before the ceasefire to take effect, stating the ceasefire deal was assumed to be temporary and declared the country’s rights to continue the fighting if necessary.

“Both President Trump and President Biden gave full backing to Israel’s right to return to fighting if Israel reaches the conclusion that negotiations of the second stage are fruitless,” he stated.

Netanyahu also demanded for the list of names of the hostages to be released an hour before the ceasefire takes effect which Hamas failed to meet due to technical field reasons.

“The prime minister instructed the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) that the ceasefire, which is supposed to go into effect at 8:30 a.m., will not begin until Israel has the list of released abductees that Hamas has pledged to provide,” his office declared.

The ceasefire deal took place with a three-hours delay, 0915 GMT, January 19, which caused 13 Palestinian deaths from Israel’s airstrikes and artillery attacks in the span of time.

Meanwhile, according to the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service, no fighting or military strikes have happened after about half an hour since the ceasefire took effect.

The 15-months aggression of Israel on Gaza comes to a pause, January 19, Sunday, following the ceasefire deal.