section_path: War in Israel and Gaza/Second ceasefire (January–March 2025)
section_name: Second ceasefire (January–March 2025)
paragraph_text: Second ceasefire (January–March 2025)
  
  On 15 January 2025, an agreement was announced between Israel and Hamas, through the mediation of Qatar, in which Hamas agreed to release a number of Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip in exchange for Hamas militants and other Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons. The two parties also agreed to a ceasefire for the second time during the war; it went into effect on the morning of 19 January 2025. On 27 January, tens of thousands of Palestinians began a mass return to northern Gaza after Israel opened a corridor for civilian movement following a 48-hour delay. Hamas claimed that Israel had violated the terms of the ceasefire, and announced the suspension of the release of Israeli hostages on 10 February. After Netanyahu and Trump threatened to restart fighting in Gaza, Hamas relented on 13 February, allowing the release of hostages to begin again two days later. On 22 February, Hamas released six Israeli hostages; however, Israel refused to release the 600 Palestinian prisoners, with Netanyahu objecting to the "use of hostages for propaganda" and saying that Israel would release the prisoners once the next hostage release was guaranteed without the ceremonies. On 25 February, Israel and Hamas reached a deal to exchange the bodies of Israeli hostages who were agreed to be handed over during the first phase for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, without public ceremony.
  
  On 1 March, the day the first phase of the ceasefire was scheduled to end, Hamas rejected an Israeli proposal to extend it to release more hostages, calling for the implementation of the second phase. Negotiations for implementing the second phase of the ceasefire agreement, intended to see the release of all remaining living hostages, the withdrawal of the Israeli military from Gaza and a permanent end to the war, were supposed to have begun in February, 16 days after the initial ceasefire began, but never happened. Netanyahu's office said that Israel endorsed a US plan to extend the Gaza truce for the Ramadan and Passover periods. Under this plan, half of the living and dead hostages would be released on the first day of the extended truce and the remaining hostages would be released at the end of the period if a permanent truce was reached. It claimed that the initial deal allowed Israel to resume war at any moment after 1 March if negotiations were deemed ineffective. Following Hamas's refusal to accept the US proposal, Netanyahu ceased the entry of aid to Gaza the next day.
  
  The humanitarian aid blockade was condemned by mediators, namely Egypt, as a violation of the ceasefire, which stipulated that phase one would automatically be extended as long as phase two negotiations were in progress. On 9 March, Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen ordered a halt to supply of Israeli electricity to Gaza. On 14 March, Hamas said that it agreed to a proposal from mediators to release Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander and the bodies of four dual-national hostages. The US and Israel rejected the offer, which did not conform to their joint proposal calling for the release of five living hostages on the first day of an extended ceasefire.