Police scuffle with demonstrators blocking a street in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Saturday during a protest demanding a ceasefire agreement and the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Ariel Schalit/AP

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Ariel Schalit/AP

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a Cabinet meeting scheduled to vote on the peace deal between Israel and Hamas on Thursday had been postponed, a setback to hopes that a ceasefire would come into effect on Sunday after 15 months of fighting .

Netanyahu said the meeting would not take place until Hamas withdraws its demands for a “last-minute concession,” adding in a statement that “Hamas rejects parts of the agreement reached with the mediators.”

He said the Cabinet meeting would not take place until mediators informed Israel that “all elements of the agreement” had been accepted. He did not specify which elements of the agreement Hamas had violated.

But in an interview with Al-Araby TV, a senior Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, said there was no basis for Netanyahu’s claims that Hamas was withdrawing parts of the ceasefire agreement.

Another member of Hamas’s political wing, Izzat al-Rishq, said in a statement that Hamas was “committed to the ceasefire agreement announced by the mediators.”

Netanyahu called President Biden and President-elect Donald Trump late Wednesday to thank them for their help in reaching the agreement. But he has also faced significant domestic pressure from far-right members of his coalition government, who have long opposed any deal with Hamas – even if it would lead to the return of dozens of Israelis held captive in the Gaza Strip since October 2023.

Several members of the coalition have repeatedly threatened to leave the coalition if a deal is reached – a move that would likely lead to the dissolution of Netanyahu’s current government.

But several more moderate members of Netanyahu’s cabinet said publicly on Wednesday that all of their ministerial colleagues should vote for the deal, as did the country’s president, Isaac Herzog.

According to Hamas-controlled emergency rescue authorities in Gaza, 73 people were killed and more than 230 injured by Israeli forces in the hours since the deal was announced by U.S. and Qatari officials, with airstrikes continuing overnight into Thursday morning.

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

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