After over a month of deploying every means at their disposal to sabotage and collapse the cease-fire agreement with Palestinian resistance forces led by Hamas, Israel — under Benjamin Netanyahu’s government — has once again refused to proceed with the next stage of agreed negotiations, threatening to resume its war on Gaza unless the latter concedes to new demands that were not part of the original agreement.

Under the initial three-phase cease-fire agreement, which all parties signed, the first stage began on January 19, 2025, and was set to last for forty-two days. Negotiations for the next phase were scheduled to begin on day sixteen, paving the way for the release of all Israeli captives and the withdrawal of occupation forces from the Gaza Strip.

Instead, Israel repeatedly violated the cease-fire agreement — over two hundred times — refused to enter discussions until the forty-first and penultimate day of phase one, and then introduced last-minute demands to extend the already-expired first phase through Ramadan and Passover. Adopting a position outlined by US special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, Netanyahu claimed in a cabinet meeting that “more time was needed for talks to reach a possible agreement,” insisting there was “no possibility of bridging the two positions . . . [with] Hamas regarding phase two.”