Netanyahu and allies trying to sabotage ceasefire, Israeli report says

Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth news outlet reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office is teaming up with extremist elements of the Israeli government to try to thwart any possibility of reaching a deal with Hamas.

While the Israeli government's official statement regarding Hamas's response to the ceasefire deal was that it would examine it and send its response to mediators, Yedioth Ahronoth said Netanyahu's office, along with some far-right allies, had been working on stopping any deal even before Wednesday's announcement.

Security and intelligence bodies were reportedly surprised by a report in Israeli media quoting a security official saying Israel refuses Hamas's insistence on a halt in fighting between the first two phases of the deal. An investigation reportedly revealed that the statement came from Netanyahu's office.

 Yedioth Ahronoth says security and intelligence officials see this as an attempt by Netanyahu and far-right elements to "thwart even the possibility of resuming contacts for a deal".

"It is impossible to exaggerate the severity of the situation," the Israeli news outlet quoted a security official knowledgeable of the ceasefire deal as saying. "There is a situation [in which] the abductees will be sacrificed because he wants to delay until after the end of the session and the speech in [US] Congress."