The Israeli government said on Sunday that it has approved a temporary extension of the ceasefire in Gaza after the conclusion of the first six-week phase of the agreement with Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The extension will last till the end of the Muslim festival of Ramzan in late March and the Jewish Passover period that lasts till mid-April, an official statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

The ongoing phase of the ceasefire came into effect on January 19 and was set to expire over the weekend without any certainty about the second phase.

In the first phase, Hamas freed 25 hostages and returned the bodies of eight others to Israel in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. The militant group took more than 200 hostages in an attack on southern Israel in October 2023.

The second phase of the ceasefire aims to secure the release of all the remaining hostages held by Hamas and negotiate an end to the war. However, negotiations about this phase have been inconclusive so far.

On Sunday, Netanyahu’s office said that the framework for the temporary extension was proposed by United States Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, who gained “the impression that, at present, there was no possibility of bridging between the positions of the sides on ending the war, and that additional time was required for talks on a permanent ceasefire”.

The statement said that the extension would see half of the hostages in Gaza released on the day that it came into effect. Upon its conclusion, the “remaining living and deceased hostages will be released” if an agreement is reached on a permanent ceasefire, it added.

On Saturday, Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem said that the militant group had rejected Israel’s “formulation” to extend the ceasefire in Gaza, Reuters reported. However, Qassem did not explicitly mention Witkoff’s plan.

Hamas is yet to respond to the statement issued on the proposed extension released on Sunday.

“While Israel has agreed to the Witkoff framework in order to return our hostages, Hamas has, until now, clung to its rejection of this framework,” Netanyahu’s office said on Sunday. “If Hamas changes its position, Israel will immediately enter into negotiations on the overall details of the Witkoff framework.”

It added: “According to the agreement, Israel can return to fighting after the 42nd day if it feels that the negotiations are ineffective.”

The statement also accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire agreement.

Israel’s military offensive against Gaza began on October 7, 2023, after Hamas launched an incursion into southern Israel, killing 1,200 persons and taking more than 200 hostages. Israel has been carrying out unprecedented air and ground strikes on Gaza since then, killing more than 47,700 persons, including over 17,400 children. About 400 Israeli soldiers have died in the conflict.

Some of the hostages were released in November 2023 as part of a brief ceasefire deal and some were killed as a result of the war.

The ceasefire agreement has allowed hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to return to their neighbourhoods in Gaza. About 1.9 million people in Gaza have been displaced since October 2023, according to the United Nations’ Palestine refugee agency.

According to the United Nations, 92% of all housing units in Gaza have either been destroyed or damaged in the Israeli attacks.