Israel backs US envoy Steve Witkoff’s proposal to extend Gaza truce for Ramadan, Passover

Israel said it endorsed a proposal to temporarily extend the truce in Gaza as a bridging measure after the first phase of its ceasefire with Hamas drew to a close.

Israel said it endorsed a proposal to temporarily extend the truce in Gaza as a bridging measure after the first phase of its ceasefire with Hamas drew to a close.

The proposal, put forward by US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, would cover Ramadan, due to end late March, and Passover, lasting through mid-April, according to a statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office released just after midnight.

The statement came close to when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced he had signed a declaration to expedite around $US4 billion ($6.44 billion) in military assistance to Israel.

“I have signed a declaration to use emergency authorities to expedite the delivery of approximately $4 billion in military assistance to Israel,” Mr Rubio said in a short statement on Sunday (AEDT), while noting that a partial arms embargo imposed under former president Joe Biden had been reversed.

The first phase of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas was set to expire over the weekend without any certainty as to the second phase, which is hoped to bring a more permanent end to the Gaza war.

Protesters hold photos of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip during a demonstration in Tel Aviv over the weekend that called for the release of all hostages. Picture: Getty Images

Negotiations have so far been inconclusive, with the fate of hostages still held in Gaza and the lives of more than two million Palestinians hanging in the balance.

According to the Israeli statement, the extension would see half of the hostages still in Gaza released on the day the deal comes into effect, with the rest to be released at the end if agreement is reached on a permanent ceasefire.

There was no immediate response from Hamas, which earlier rejected the idea of an extension.

Israel’s backing of what it described as a US plan comes amid a flurry of warnings not to restart the war, which after 15 months devastated Gaza, displaced almost the entire population of the coastal strip and sparked a hunger crisis.

United Nations head Antonio Guterres warned against a “catastrophic” return to war and said that a “permanent ceasefire and the release of all hostages are essential to preventing escalation and averting more devastating consequences for civilians”.

Israeli officials engaged in ceasefire negotiations with Egyptian, Qatari and American mediators in Cairo last week.

But by early Saturday there was no sign of consensus as Muslims in Gaza marked the first day of Ramadan with coloured lights brightening war-damaged neighbourhoods.

A senior Hamas official told AFP the Palestinian militant group was prepared to release all remaining hostages in a single swap during the second phase.

“Hamas will not be happy to drag on phase one, but it doesn’t really have the capacity to force Israel to go on to phase two,” Max Rodenbeck, an analyst for the International Crisis Group, told AFP.

Hamas hostage video

Under the six-week ceasefire that took effect on January 19, Gaza militants freed 25 living hostages and returned the bodies of eight others to Israel, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

The deal, reached following months of gruelling negotiations, largely halted the war that erupted with Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

While Hamas on several occasions reiterated its “readiness to engage in negotiations for its second phase”, Israel preferred to secure more hostage releases under an extension of the first phase.

A Palestinian source close to the talks told AFP that Israel had proposed to extend the first phase in successive one-week intervals with a view to conducting hostage-prisoner swaps each week, adding that Hamas had rejected the plan.

Of the 251 hostages taken during Hamas’s October 7 attack, 58 hostages remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Hamas’s armed wing released footage showing what appeared to be a group of Israeli hostages in Gaza, accompanied with the message: “Only a ceasefire agreement brings them back alive”.

AFP was unable to immediately verify the video, the latest that militants have released of Gaza captives.

Netanyahu’s office called it “cruel propaganda” but Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said the Horn family, two of whose members appear in the video, had given permission for the footage of them to be published.

Israeli-Argentinian Yair Horn was released on February 15 but his brother Eitan remains in captivity in Gaza.

“We demand from the decision-makers: Look Eitan in the eyes. Don’t stop the agreement that has already brought dozens of hostages back to us,” the family said.

Netanyahu’s coalition worries

Domestic political considerations are a factor in Mr Netanyahu’s reluctance to begin the planned second stage.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of the far-right faction in the governing coalition, has threatened to quit if the war is not resumed.

“The Israeli government could fall if we enter phase two,” said Michael Horowitz, head of intelligence for risk management consultancy Le Beck International.

Israel has said it needs to retain troops in a strip of Gaza along the Egyptian border to stop arms smuggling by Hamas.

The truce has enabled greater aid flows into the Gaza Strip, where about 70 per cent of buildings were damaged or destroyed, almost the entire population was displaced, and widespread hunger occurred because of the war, according to the United Nations.

The Hamas attack that began the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1218 people, mostly civilians, while the Israeli retaliation has killed 48,388 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, figures from both sides show.