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Gaza caffeine, Geisel Deal this weekend is running. What's next?

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On his last full day as President, Joe Biden officially effective as a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which increased hope that months of bloodshed in the Gaza Strip finally ended.

“After so much pain, destruction and loss of life, the weapons in Gaza were silent today,” said Biden reporters before visiting a church in South Carolina.

Six weeks later, the ceasefire will expire on Saturday when it is increasing doubts as to whether it will be the basis for a permanent peace agreement.

New tensions have risen between Israel and Hamas who accuse each other of violating the first phase of the agreement. Negotiations for the second phase that should begin during the six -week interlude still have to start seriously.

Steve Witkoff, the Messenger of President Donald Trump, said on Sunday that he would travel to the Middle East this week, probably on Wednesday, to request a continuation of the ceasefire.

We know the following about the prospects of an extension:

What were the conditions of the ceasefire in Gaza?

The ceasefire, which has been negotiated in the last days of bid administration, is to stop the war in Gaza. Some appreciated Trump, who would compete in office than the reason why the deal came together.

The conflict began on October 7, 2023, when the militant Palestinian group of Hamas tore through the border cities of Israel, killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages. Israel has retreated with a massive military operation that, according to the Ministry of Health led in Gaza, killed more than 48,000 Palestinians.

In collaboration with mediators from Qatar and Egypt, the United States helped convey a three-phase armistice and a hostage deal.

The first phase that came into force on January 19 called for a six -week break in the fight together with the release of 33 Israeli hostages, which were held in Gaza in Gaza, by almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and prisoners kept by Israel.

The second phase was to include a permanent end of the fights, a complete withdrawal of the Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and the release of around 60 remaining hostages in Hamas. The third phase was to include the reconstruction of Gaza, which was decimated by the war.

Since the agreement came into force, Hamas has published 25 hostages who are still alive, and the corpses of four other prisoners, including two young boys, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, and her mother Shiri. The Palestinian group is to release the corpses of four others on Thursday, although it is uncertain whether this will happen. More than 60 others remain in captivity, although half of them are considered dead.

Israel has released several hundred Palestinian prisoners, but said that on Sunday it delayed the release of 620 other indefinite times until the Hamas met their conditions.

Why does Israel delay the release of Palestinian prisoners?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel did not free the 620 Palestinian prisoners and prisoners that it was expected to insure “until the next hostages and without the humiliating ceremonies”. “

Netanyahu was upset because some of the Israeli hostages published by Hamas were led to a stage in front of a crowd in Gaza by armed militants before they were handed over to the Red Cross. In one case, an Israeli hostage was asked by Hamas to kiss his kidnapper. In another case, boxes that contained the corpses of Israeli children were exhibited on a stage under a propaganda banner, which Netanyahu represented as a vampire.

The staged ceremonies have criticized in the past few weeks, including from the USA. UN officers said that the striking public exhibitions had violated international law because they were not respectful.

However, Hamas said on Sunday that the ceremonies were worthy and Israel used it as an excuse to escape his obligations that were agreed as part of the ceasefire.

Regardless of this, the ceremonies have become a new flashpoint, which threatens the prospects for expanding the ceasefire and the possibility of a second phase contract.

Israel sends tanks into the West Bank

The tensions continued to escalate on Sunday when Israel sent tanks to West Bank for the first time in 20 years when the military ordered to prepare for an “extended stay” to combat Palestinian militant groups in the region's refugee camps.

Netanyahu ordered the military to record the intensity of the operations in transport depots near Tel Aviv after a series of explosions in buses last week. No victims were reported in the explosions, but they revived memories of suicide attacks on public transport, in which hundreds of Israelis or Intifada were killed two decades ago during the Palestinian uprising.

Nabil Abu Ruddeineh, a spokesman for the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, condemned the decision to use Israel to use tanks in northern West Bank.

What is the US position?

Trump, who started bidges as President in January, is with Israel.

The White House has supported the decision of Israel to delay the publication of the Palestinian prisoners, and quotes the “barbaric treatment” of Hamas Trump, which is ready to support Israel in “any measures that choose Hamas,” said the spokesman for the National Security Council, Brian Hughes.

At the beginning of this month, Trump gave an ultimatum to Hamas when the Palestinian group announced that it would hire hostages after accusing Israel for ceasefire injuries. Trump said Israel should cancel the ceasefire unless every Geisel Hamas Holds is released. He warned that “hell will break out” if all hostages are not freed, although he has not specified which actions he could take.

The Hamas later drove the publication of additional hostages.

What's next?

Israeli officials said on Tuesday that Israel is considering an expansion of the ceasefire in Gaza to bring the remaining 63 hostages home while he initially turns on the future of the future of enclave.

“We are very careful,” said deputy Israeli Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel in Jerusalem when he was asked whether the armistice could be expanded without the beginning of the conversations in a second phase, which would contain difficult problems such as a final end of the war and the future government of Gaza.

“There was no special agreement about it, but it could be a possibility,” she said. “We have not closed the opportunity to continue the current ceasefire, but in return for our hostages, and they have to be returned safely.”

If no agreement is achieved by Friday, officials expect either a return to the fight or freeze in the current situation. In this case, the ceasefire would continue, but the hostages would not return, and Israel can block the entry of help in Gaza.

Reuters announced that two officials who were involved in the ceasefire process that Israel and Hamas had no negotiations to complete an agreement on the second phase of the ceasefire, had to close the width gaps between the two sides in order to be completed.

“I think it's unrealistic to see something like this within a few days,” said Haskel. “This must be discussed in detail. This will take time.”

Witkoff, Trump's envoy in the Middle East, sounded more optimistic than he announced the plans to go to the region to drive up an enrollment.

“I think it will happen,” he predicted Sunday during a appearance in CBS News' “Hit from the nation with Margaret Brennan.”

Contribution: Reuters

Follow Michael Collins on X @MCollinsnews.