Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a cabinet meeting scheduled for Thursday to vote on a peace deal between Israel and Hamas has been postponed and a ceasefire after 15 months of fighting will take effect on Sunday. hope was dealt a blow.

Netanyahu said the meeting would only take place if Hamas withdraws its demand for "last-minute concessions," adding in a statement that "Hamas has reneged on part of its agreement with the mediators."

He said the cabinet meeting would not proceed until mediators informed Israel that "all elements of the agreement" had been accepted. He did not specify what aspects of the agreement Hamas had violated.

But senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said in an interview with Al-Arabiya television that Netanyahu's claims that Hamas was withdrawing from parts of the ceasefire agreement were unfounded.

Another member of Hamas's political wing, Izzat Rishq, said in a statement that Hamas was "committed to the implementation of the ceasefire announced by the mediators."

Netanyahu called President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump late Wednesday to thank them for their help in reaching a deal. But he also faces intense domestic political pressure from right-wing members of the coalition government, who have long opposed any kind of deal with Hamas - even though it would result in dozens of Israelis imprisoned in Gaza since October 2023. People return.

Some members of the alliance have repeatedly threatened to abandon the alliance if a deal is reached - a move that could prompt the dissolution of Netanyahu's current government.

But several more moderate members of Netanyahu's cabinet said publicly on Wednesday that all their fellow ministers should vote for the deal, as did President Isaac Herzog.

In the hours since U.S. and Qatari officials announced the deal, Israeli forces have killed 73 people and wounded more than 230, with airstrikes that continued overnight and into Thursday, according to emergency relief agencies in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Morning.

The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel from Gaza, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages into Gaza.

The war has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza health authorities. The Israeli military says 405 soldiers have been killed in fighting since the invasion of Gaza.