Israel’s security cabinet approved in a vote on Friday a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal that should take effect this weekend, the prime minister’s office said.
The agreement, which must now go to the full cabinet for a final green light, would halt fighting and bombardment in Gaza’s deadliest-ever war.
It would also launch on Sunday the release of hostages held in the territory since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Under the deal struck by Qatar, the United States and Egypt, the ensuing weeks should also see the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
Israeli strikes have killed dozens of people since the deal was announced. Israel’s military said on Thursday it had hit about 50 targets across Gaza over the past day.
The full cabinet will convene later Friday to approve the deal. The ceasefire would take effect on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president.
Saying the proposed deal “supports achieving the objectives of the war”, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the security cabinet recommended that the government approve it.
His office had earlier said the release of hostages would begin on Sunday.
Even before the start of the truce, Gazans displaced by the war to other parts of the territory were preparing to return home.
“I will go to kiss my land,” said Nasr al-Gharabli, who fled his home in Gaza City for a camp further south in the territory.
“If I die on my land, it would be better than being here as a displaced person.”
In Israel, there was joy but also anguish over the 251 hostages taken in the deadliest attack in the country’s history.
Kfir Bibas, whose second birthday falls on Saturday, is the youngest hostage.
Hamas said in November 2023 that Kfir, his four-year-old brother Ariel and their mother Shiri had died in an air strike, but with the Israeli military yet to confirm their deaths, many are clinging to hope.
“I think of them, these two little redheads, and I get shivers,” said 70-year-old Osnat Nyska, whose grandchildren attended nursery with the Bibas brothers.
return “to their residences”, he said.
Two sources close to Hamas told AFP three Israeli women soldiers would be the first to be released on Sunday evening.
The women may in fact be civilians, as the militant group refers to all Israelis of military age who have undergone mandatory military service as soldiers.
Once released they would be received by Red Cross staff as well as Egyptian and Qatari teams, one source said on condition of anonymity.
They would then be taken to Egypt where they would undergo medical examinations and then to Israel, the source said.
Israel “is then expected to release the first group of Palestinian prisoners, including several with high sentences”, the source added.
Egypt was on Friday hosting technical talks on the implementation of the truce, according to state-linked media.
French President Emmanuel Macron said French-Israeli citizens Ofer Kalderon and Ohad Yahalomi were on the list of 33 hostages to be freed in the first phase.
Biden said the second phase could bring a “permanent end to the war”.
In aid-starved Gaza, where nearly all of its 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once, aid workers worry about the monumental task ahead.
“Everything has been destroyed, children are on the streets, you can’t pinpoint just one priority,” Doctors Without Borders (MSF) coordinator Amande Bazerolle told AFP.
AFP
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