• Israel’s envoy demands pressure on Hamas to return hostages’ remains
  
  
  ISTANBUL 

Palestinian envoy to the UN Majed Bamya called Thursday for upholding the Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas and preventing its collapse.

“Our goal is to collectively work to ensure the ceasefire holds and prevent its collapse,” Bamya told a UN Security Council session on the situation in the Middle East.

He praised the “constant engagement” of Türkiye, Egypt, Qatar and the US to broker and maintain the ceasefire, calling it “an opportunity to save lives.”

Bamya stressed that the ceasefire “is here,” even if it is “imperfect, volatile, transgressed or fragile,” saying the world’s responsibility now is to maintain it rather than standing by as it unravels.

“We do not forget the journalists…the doctors…the humanitarians killed while trying to save lives,” he added, mourning the thousands of Palestinian civilians killed in Israel’s genocidal war.

The Palestinian delegate reaffirmed his government’s commitment to peace and the two-state solution.

“There is no Israeli security at the expense of Palestinian lives and Palestinian rights,” he said. “Peace cannot come from the denial of these rights; it comes from their fulfillment.”

Bamya called for transforming the Gaza ceasefire deal into “a just and lasting peace.”

Danny Danon, Israel's permanent representative to the UN, said that “Israel has not forgotten those who have not yet returned. We will do whatever it takes to bring them home, all of them.”

“The world must keep the pressure where it belongs on Hamas to return the hostages….and to honor the peace plan it signed,” he added.

The first phase of US President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza ceasefire deal went into effect on Oct. 10. Phase one includes the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. The plan also envisages the rebuilding of Gaza and the establishment of a new governing mechanism without Hamas.

Since October 2023, Israel’s genocidal war has killed over 68,200 people and injured more than 170,300, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.