Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday accused Hamas of backing out of a cease-fire deal to release hostages and bring a pause to more than a year of fighting in the Gaza Strip. 

Netanyahu’s office said Thursday his Cabinet won’t meet to vote on the Gaza cease-fire deal until Hamas backs down from what it called a ‘last minute crisis.’

Netanyahu’s office accused Hamas, without elaborating, of trying to go back on part of the agreement in an attempt ‘to extort last minute concessions.’ 

The Israeli Cabinet was set to ratify the deal Thursday.

President Biden joined Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken for a Wednesday news conference announcing that the deal would roll out in three phases. 

Biden said the first phase will last six weeks and ‘includes a full and complete cease-fire, withdrawal of Israeli forces from all the populated areas of Gaza, and the release of a number of hostages held by Hamas, including women and elderly and the wounded. And I’m proud to say Americans will be part of that hostage release and phase one as well. And the vice president and I cannot wait to welcome them home,’ he said. 

In exchange, Israel released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, Biden said, and Palestinians ‘can also return to their neighborhoods in all areas of Gaza, and a surge of humanitarian assistance into Gaza will begin.’

Izzat al-Rishq, a senior Hamas official, said the militant group ‘is committed to the ceasefire agreement, which was announced by the mediators.’

Netanyahu’s office had earlier accused Hamas of backtracking on an earlier understanding that he said would give Israel a veto over which prisoners convicted of murder would be released in exchange for hostages.

Under the terms of the cease-fire deal, 33 hostages are set to be released over the next six weeks in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Israeli forces will pull back from many areas, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians would be able to return to what’s left of their homes, and there would be a surge of humanitarian assistance.

The remainder of the hostages, including male soldiers, are to be released in a second phase that will be negotiated during the first. Hamas has said it will not release the remaining captives without a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal, while Israel has vowed to keep fighting until it dismantles the group and to maintain open-ended security control over the territory.

Netanyahu has faced great domestic pressure to bring home the scores of hostages, but his far-right coalition partners have threatened to bring down his government if he makes too many concessions. He has enough opposition support to approve an agreement, but doing so would weaken his coalition and make early elections more likely.

Meanwhile, Palestinians in Gaza reported heavy Israeli bombardment overnight as people were celebrating the ceasefire deal. Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 48 people were killed in Israeli strikes between midday Wednesday and Thursday morning. Around half of the dead were women and children, Zaher al-Wahedi, head of the ministry’s registration department, told The Associated Press. He said the toll could rise as hospitals update their records.

Mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the U.S. are expected to meet in Cairo on Thursday for talks on implementing the agreement. They have spent the past year holding indirect talks with Israel and Hamas that finally resulted in a deal after repeated setbacks.

President-elect Donald Trump’s Mideast envoy joined the talks in the final weeks, and both the outgoing administration and Trump’s team are taking credit for the breakthrough.

Israel’s offensive has killed over 46,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Health Ministry. it does not say how many of the dead were militants. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.

The war has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced some 90% of its population of 2.3 million people, according to the United Nations.

Fox News Digital’s Efrat Lachter and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Days away from his upcoming Jan. 20 inauguration, President-elect Donald Trump declared in a Truth Social post that the incoming administration had already hired more than 1,000 people to work for the U.S. government.

He also indicated that individuals who have worked with or been backed by ‘people suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome,’ are not desirable job candidates.

Trump named former National Security Adviser John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence and others, noting that those who have worked with or been endorsed by those individuals should not be floated as job candidates.

‘As of today, the incoming Trump Administration has hired over 1,000 people for The United States Government. They are outstanding in every way, and you will see the fruits of their labor over the coming years. We will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and it will happen very quickly!’ the incoming commander-in-chief said in the post.

‘In order to save time, money, and effort, it would be helpful if you would not send, or recommend to us, people who worked with, or are endorsed by, Americans for No Prosperity (headed by Charles Koch), ‘Dumb as a Rock’ John Bolton, ‘Birdbrain’ Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, disloyal Warmongers Dick Cheney, and his Psycho daughter, Liz, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, General(?) Mark Milley, James Mattis, Mark Yesper, or any of the other people suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, more commonly known as TDS. Thank you for your attention to this matter!’ he added.

Haley and Pence each mounted bids for the GOP presidential nomination during the recent election cycle, but both ultimately dropped out. While Haley endorsed Trump, Pence did not.

Cheney, who was one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, has been a vociferous Trump critic over the years. Last year she backed Vice President Kamala Harris, and campaigned with the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee.

Ryan, a former House Speaker, told Yahoo Finance last year that he would not vote for Trump, but planned to write in a Republican, as he had done the last time.

Romney was one of the seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump after the 2021 House impeachment. In 2020, Romney voted to convict on one of the two impeachment articles levied against Trump. Romney, who has indicated that he did not vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020, declared last year that he would not vote for Trump in 2024.

Bolton, an outspoken Trump detractor, said last year on BBC’s ‘HARDtalk’ that he did not think the candidates were fit to serve as president, and he would not vote for either one.

President Biden warned in his farewell speech of an ‘ultra-wealthy’ ‘oligarchy’ posing a threat to America as big tech CEOS have been warming up to President-elect Trump in recent months. 

Biden spoke Wednesday as reports emerged this week that Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg – the three most wealthy people in the world who collectively are worth more than $850 billion, according to Forbes – will be seated next to Trump’s cabinet picks and elected officials next Monday at his inauguration. 

‘I have no doubt that America is in a position to continue to succeed. That’s why in my farewell address tonight, I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern. And that’s the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few, ultra-wealthy people. And the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked,’ Biden said from the Oval Office. 

‘Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights, freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead,’ Biden continued. ‘We see the consequences all across America, and we’ve seen it before, more than a century ago. But the American people stood up to the robber barons back then and busted the trust. They didn’t punish the wealthy, they just made the wealthy play by the rules everybody else had to.’ 

Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, have all met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida following his election victory in November. 

During the election cycle, Musk gave at least $277 million in donations to help get Trump and other Republicans elected, according to The Washington Post, which cited filings from the Federal Election Commission. 

Tech giants including Amazon, Meta, Apple, Google and Microsoft are reported to have donated $1 million each to Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. 

Musk has been tasked with heading up the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which will examine issues of government spending, waste, efficiency and operations. 

In order to do that, Musk may occupy space in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building right next to the West Wing that houses the bulk of office space for White House staffers, the New York Times reported. 

Biden also said in his farewell speech that American leadership and technology is an ‘unparalleled source of innovation that can transform lives,’ but ‘we see the same dangers, the concentration of technology, power and wealth.’ 

‘You know, in his farewell address, President Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of the military industrial complex. He warned us then about, and I quote, the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power, end of quote. Six decades later, I’m equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country, as well,’ Biden added. 

‘Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling. Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit,’ the president continued. ‘We must hold the social platform accountable to protect our children, our families and our very democracy from the abuse of power. 

‘Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is the most consequential technology of our time, perhaps of all time. Nothing offers more profound possibilities and risks for our economy and our security, our society, for humanity. Artificial intelligence even has the potential to help us answer my call to end cancer as we know it. But unless safeguards are in place, AI could spawn new threats to our rights, our way of life, to our privacy, how we work and how we protect our nation. We must make sure AI is safe and trustworthy and good for all humankind,’ Biden said. 

Fox News’ Andrew Mark Miller and Diana Stancy contributed to this report. 

Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., isn’t playing around when it comes to bringing federal employees back to the office. In the committee’s first hearing of the 119th Congress, Comer delivered remarks slamming the Biden administration’s ‘failure’ to get federal employees back to the office.

‘When President Trump’s team enters federal agency headquarters in and around DC, they’ll find them to be mostly empty. That’s due to the Biden administration’s failure to end telework and to bring federal employees back to the office,’ Comer said.

While there are still a few days left in President Biden’s term, Washington is preparing itself for a shift ahead of President-elect Trump’s return to DC. According to the Oversight Committee’s report, which cites ‘the Biden-Harris Administration’s own data,’ as of May 2024, 1,057,000 telework-eligible federal employees were in-office three times a week, and another 228,000 remote employees ‘never come to the office at all.’

The report, titled ‘The lights are on, but everyone is at home: Why the new administration will enter largely vacant federal agency offices,’ is 41 pages and was prepared by Republicans on the committee. In its report, the committee makes the case that telework policies have been ‘detrimental’ to government agencies.

In the hearing, Comer pointed the finger at Democrats, in particular, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-Ny. He slammed Schumer for allegedly letting the Show Up Act ‘collect dust.’ The legislation would bring federal employees’ telework back to ‘pre-pandemic levels.’

‘The Government Accountability Office found that 17 of the largest 24 federal agency headquarters in the DC area were less than 25% occupied, some much less than 25% occupied. A separate study by the Public Buildings Reform Board found that occupancy rates were just half that at 12%, 12% occupancy,’ Comer said at the hearing. ‘Taxpayer money is being wasted to lease and maintain all that expensive, empty office space.’

The committee writes in its report that Trump is inheriting ‘a largely absentee workforce,’ blaming it on the telework policies ‘entrenched’ by the Biden administration.

Comer also noted that the telework policy for federal workers has resulted in a ‘lack of foot traffic’ that is ‘economically devastating’ for DC, something Mayor Muriel Bowser has also pointed out. Bowser has been ‘imploring the White House to change’ the telework policy for nearly two years.

In fact, the Democrat lawmaker met with President-elect Trump to discuss what could be done with the ‘underutilized federal buildings’ around the city.

Bowser expressed optimism after the Dec. 30 meeting, saying both she and Trump ‘want Washington, DC to be the best, most beautiful city in the world and we want the capital city to reflect the strength of our nation.’

The committee’s report acknowledges that Trump ‘invoked massive telework and remote work’ at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and adds that he ‘quickly sought to return federal employees to their offices to deliver for the American people when it became clear that widespread, indiscriminate lockdowns were not the right societal answer to the pandemic.’

Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

The conservative House Freedom Caucus is preparing to release a proposal for Republicans’ planned conservative policy overhaul that would raise the debt limit by two years or roughly $4 trillion, Fox News Digital is told.

Congressional Republicans are preparing for a massive conservative policy overhaul through the budget reconciliation process. By lowering the threshold for passage in the Senate from 60 votes to 51, reconciliation allows the party controlling Congress and the White House to pass broad policy changes — provided they deal with budgetary and other fiscal matters.

But there has been some disagreement over whether to pass all of their goals – touching on border security, defense, spending cuts, tax cuts, and energy – in one single bill to not risk any items falling behind, or split the priorities into two separate pieces of legislation to ensure early victory on at least some measures.

President-elect Donald Trump has said he favors the one-bill approach, but would be open to two. He also tasked Republicans with raising or suspending the debt limit, with the U.S. Treasury projected to run out of funds to pay its debts by mid-June.

Freedom Caucus members are among the Republicans calling for two separate bills. The plan being unveiled on Thursday would call for border security, defense, and steep spending cuts to be included in the first bill.

Those cuts would then be used to offset tax breaks being extended in the second bill, Fox News Digital was told.

The conservative lawmakers presented the plan to Trump at Mar-a-Lago last Friday, but it’s unclear how he responded.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., previously backed a two-bill approach in public comments. 

Opponents of that plan, which include Republicans on the House Ways & Means Committee, have warned that leaving Trump’s tax cuts for a second bill would all but guarantee that provisions he passed during his previous term would expire by the end of the year, raising taxes for millions of Americans.

Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., previously pointed out to Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo that two reconciliation bills have not been passed in one term since the 1990s.

But GOP negotiators have not decided whether to include action on the debt limit in their reconciliation bill, with both measures known to require difficult political maneuvering. 

The Freedom Caucus’ expected plan is a way for fiscal hawks who have traditionally scorned action on the debt limit to agree to do so.

That same group is also concerned that putting all the agenda items into a single bill will not result in sufficient cuts to offset the added spending. 

With two House Republicans departing for the Trump administration on Jan. 20, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., will have to navigate a razor-thin majority until special elections are expected in April.

Until then, just one Republican ‘no’ vote will be enough to derail any piece of legislation that does not get Democratic support.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Trump transition team and the House Freedom Caucus for comment.

House Judiciary Democrats penned a letter Wednesday asking outgoing U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to drop the charges against President-elect Donald Trump’s former co-defendants in the classified documents case. 

They want Trump’s valet Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, to walk from the charges so that Garland can release the second volume, which is related to the classified documents case, of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report. Smith resigned from the Justice Department on Friday. Garland said he will not release the second volume because both men still face prosecution. 

The Democrats believe that Trump will pardon both men, so Garland should drop the charges now or the report will not come out. 

‘While we understand your honorable and steadfast adherence to Mr. Nauta’s and Mr. De Oliveira’s due process rights as criminal defendants, the practical effect of this position is that Volume 2 will almost certainly remain concealed for at least four more years if you do not release it before President-elect Trump’s inauguration on January 20,’ the letter obtained by Fox News says. 

‘The public interest, however, now demands that the President-elect must not escape accountability to the American people,’ they added. ‘Accordingly, to the extent the tangential charges against Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira stand in the way of the overriding imperative of transparency and truth, the interests of justice demand that their cases be dismissed now so that the entirety of Special Counsel Smith’s report can be released to the American people.’

The letter was signed by House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin of Maryland, as well as Democratic committee members Reps. Jerry Nadler and Dan Goldman of New York; Eric Swalwell, Ted Lieu, J. Luis Correa, Sydney Kamlager-Dove and Zoe Lofgren of California; Hank Johnson and Lucy McBath of Georgia; Steve Cohen of Tennessee, Pramila Jayapal of Washington; Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania; Joseph Neguse of Colorado; Deborah Ross of North Carolina; Becca Balint of Vermont; Jesus G. ‘Chuy’ Garcia of Illinois; and Jasmine Crockett of Missouri. 

‘We obviously do not condone the sycophantic, delinquent, and criminal behavior that Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira are charged with,’ the letter says. ‘However, Donald Trump was plainly the mastermind of this deception operation to conceal and abuse classified material, a fact made clear by his being charged with 32 counts of willfully retaining these classified documents, while his co-defendants were charged with lesser offenses related to obstructing the investigation, largely at Mr. Trump’s direction. By virtue of DOJ policy prohibiting the indictment or prosecution of a sitting president, Mr. Trump has dodged any criminal accountability for his own wrongdoing. Mr. Trump’s 2024 victory saved him from a public trial and robbed the American people of the opportunity to learn the meaning and details of his unpatriotic, reckless, and intentional abuse of national security information.’ 

Judge Aileen Cannon will hear arguments over Volume 2 in Fort Pierce, Florida, on Thursday. Garland released Volume 1, focused on the election interference case, earlier this week. 

Attorneys for Nauta and De Oliveira earlier this month asked Cannon to keep the special counsel report out of the public eye. 

Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira all pleaded not guilty to federal charges alleging they conspired to obstruct the FBI investigation into classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago. 

Smith was tapped by Garland in 2022 to investigate both the alleged effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as well as Trump’s keeping of allegedly classified documents at his Florida residence. 

It is customary for a special counsel to release a final report when his or her work is done, detailing the findings of their investigation and explaining any prosecution or declination decisions they reached as a result of the probe. It’s up to Garland whether to release it publicly. In Smith’s case, the prosecution decision is immaterial, given Trump’s status as president-elect and longstanding Justice Department policy against bringing criminal charges against a sitting president. 

Garland is expected to give his farewell address to the Justice Department on Thursday afternoon.

The field of contenders to become the next Democratic National Committee chair has narrowed after a long-shot candidate dropped out and endorsed Ken Martin, Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party chair.

Martin, a DNC vice chair who has led the association of state Democratic Party chairs, has been considered a frontrunner for the DNC job. 

Martin received a boost after New York state Sen. James Skoufis dropped out of the race and endorsed him, Politico reported Thursday morning.

Skoufis told the outlet in a statement that Martin ‘will re-center what is most important for our party: expanding the map and rebuilding our once-big Democratic tent by taking power outside of the DC Beltway and kicking the out-of-touch consultant class to the curb.’

Democrats suffered major setbacks up and down the ballot in the 2024 elections as former President Trump recaptured the White House and the GOP flipped the Senate and held onto its fragile majority in the House.

Martin told Fox News Digital last month that if he becomes chair, the first thing he would do is ‘figure out a plan to win.’

‘And we need to start writing that plan, making sure we’re looking underneath the hood,’ he said. ‘How much money do we have at the party? What are the contracts? What contracts do we need to get rid of? And, frankly, bringing all of our stakeholder groups together, that’s the biggest thing.’

Two other top contenders in the DNC race are Ben Wikler, who has steered the state Democratic Party in battleground Wisconsin since 2019, and Martin O’Malley, the former two-term Maryland governor and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate who served as commissioner of the Social Security Administration the past year. 

Current DNC chair Jaime Harrison is not seeking another four-year term steering the national party committee. The next chair will be chosen by the roughly 450 voting members of the national party committee when they meet Feb. 1 at National Harbor in Maryland for the DNC’s winter meeting.

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.