On Wednesday, Israel’s government and Hamas agreed to a four-day cease-fire to allow the release of 50 hostages held in Gaza in exchange for the release of 150 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel and the admission of humanitarian assistance into the beleaguered enclave.
Qatari officials, as well as officials from the United States, Israel, and Hamas, have been claiming for days that a deal is imminent.
According to Israeli estimates, Hamas is keeping more than 200 captives captured when its fighters stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, murdering 1,200 people.
According to a statement issued by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, 50 women and children would be freed over the course of four days, during which combat will be suspended.
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The halt will be prolonged by one day for every additional ten hostages freed, it stated, without mentioning the release of Palestinian captives in compensation.
“Israel’s government is committed to releasing all hostages.” “It approved the proposed deal tonight as a first step toward achieving this goal,” the statement stated.
The 50 captives would be exchanged for 150 Palestinian women and children detained in Israeli prisons, according to Hamas. According to the Palestinian organization, the cease-fire agreement will also allow hundreds of trucks of humanitarian, medical, and fuel relief to reach Gaza.
It went on to say that Israel has promised not to assault or detain anyone in Gaza during the truce period.
US Vice President Joe Biden praised the agreement.
“Today’s deal should bring home additional American hostages, and I will not stop until they are all released,” stated Vice President Joe Biden in a statement.
The Qatari government announced the release of 50 civilian women and children captives from Gaza in return for the release of “a number of Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons.”
The truce’s start date will be revealed within the next 24 hours, according to a statement.
The Israeli justice ministry published a list of around 300 Palestinian detainees due for release, ostensibly to allow for any last-minute legal objections.
According to Gaza officials, the agreement marks the first truce in a conflict in which Israeli bombardments have devastated swaths of Hamas-ruled Gaza, killed 13,300 civilians, and left roughly two-thirds of the 2.3 million residents homeless.
However, Netanyahu stated that Israel’s overall purpose remained unaltered.
“We are at war, and we will fight until we achieve all of our objectives.” “To destroy Hamas, return all of our hostages, and ensure that no entity in Gaza can pose a threat to Israel,” he declared in a pre-recorded address at the outset of the government meeting.
In a statement, Hamas said: “As we announce the striking of a truce agreement, we affirm that our fingers remain on the trigger, and our victorious fighters will remain on the look out to defend our people and defeat the occupation.”
Three Americans, including a 3-year-old girl whose parents were murdered in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, are likely to be among the captives released, according to a senior US official.
According to Israel’s authorities, more than half of the captives possessed dual or foreign citizenship from more than 40 countries, including the United States, Thailand, the United Kingdom, France, Argentina, Germany, Chile, Spain, and Portugal.
According to Israeli media, the first captive release is scheduled for Thursday. According to sources, the accord must be implemented after 24 hours to allow Israeli people to petition the Supreme Court to prevent the release of Palestinian detainees.
The grandmother of 13-year-old Gali Tarshansky, who is reported to be imprisoned in Gaza, Kamelia Hoter Ishay, said she would not trust claims of a deal until she received word that the girl had been released.
“And then I’ll know that it’s really over and I can breathe a sigh of relief and say that’s it, it’s over,” she told me.
According to Qadura Fares, chairman of the Palestinian Authority’s Commission for Prisoners’ Affairs in Ramallah, 85 women and 350 juveniles are among the more than 7,800 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. According to him, the majority were imprisoned without charges or for acts like as flinging rocks at Israeli forces, rather than for initiating terrorist assaults.
Mohammed Al-Khulaifi, Minister of State at the Foreign Ministry of Qatar, told Reuters that the International Committee of the Red Cross will be working inside Gaza to secure the release of the captives.
He stated that the truce implies “no attack whatsoever.” There will be no military moves, no expansion, nothing.”
Al-Khulaifi went on to say that Qatar expects the accord “will be a seed to a bigger agreement and a permanent cease-fire.” That is our objective.”
To date, Hamas has freed just four captives: Judith Raanan, 59, and her daughter Natalie Raanan, 17, from the United States on Oct. 20, for “humanitarian reasons,” and Israeli ladies Nurit Cooper, 79, and Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, on Oct. 23.
The armed wing of the Palestinian terrorist organization Islamic Jihad, which collaborated with Hamas in the Oct. 7 raid, announced late Tuesday that one of the Israeli hostages it had held since the Oct. 7 strikes on Israel has died.
“We previously expressed our willingness to release her for humanitarian reasons, but the enemy was stalling, and this led to her death,” Al Quds Brigades claimed on their Telegram channel.
While everyone’s attention was focused on the hostage release agreement, combat on the ground continued.
According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, an Israeli drone attack in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday killed five Palestinians and injured others in the Tolkurm camp.
According to Mounir Al-Barsh, director-general of Gaza’s health ministry, the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza City. According to him, Israel alleged militants were operating from the site and threatened to act against them within four hours.
Israel also stated on Tuesday that its forces have ringed the Jabalia refugee camp, a crowded urban extension of Gaza City where Hamas has been fighting advancing Israeli armoured forces.
According to WAFA, 33 persons were killed and scores were injured in an Israeli air attack on a portion of Jabalia.
According to Hamas-affiliated media in southern Gaza, ten individuals were murdered per day.
Reuters was unable to confirm the claims of violence on either side immediately.
(Reporting from Gaza by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Jerusalem by Emily Rose and Henriette Chacar, Doha by Andrew Mills, Washington by Steve Holland and Jonathan Landay, Cairo by Ahmed Mohamed Hassan and Reuters bureaux; writing by Lincoln Feast and Raju Gopalakrishnan; editing by Cynthia Osterman, Stephen Coates, and Simon Cameron-Moore)
