The truce in the fighting between Israel and Hamas will come into effect on Friday morning and the first hostages will be released in the afternoon, the spokesperson for the Qatari Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday.
“The humanitarian break will begin at 7 a.m. Friday […] and the first group of civilian hostages will be released around 4 p.m. the same day,” said Majed Al-Ansari, specifying that 13 women and children will be released.
Qatar, a key mediator, announced on Wednesday a renewable four-day truce in the fighting, coupled with an exchange of hostages held in Gaza and Palestinians detained in three Israeli prisons.
The agreement provides for an exchange “of 10 hostages for 30 prisoners” on the first day of the truce, for a total of 50 civilian hostages released in four days for 150 Palestinians. Israel has released a list of 300 prisoners, 33 women and 267 young people under the age of 19, including 49 members of Hamas, likely to be released.
But the head of the Israeli National Security Council, Tzachi Hanegbi, declared during the night that the release of the hostages would not take place “before Friday”, with the two camps mutually blaming each other for the postponement.
“We hope that the framework (of the agreement) will take effect tomorrow, we are waiting for the signature,” an Israeli official told AFP on condition of anonymity, reporting “new requests” from Hamas. But according to a Palestinian official who also requested anonymity, discussions are stumbling over “the names of the Israeli hostages and the terms of their handover” to a third party.
France called for the implementation of the agreement “without further delay”, echoing the reactions of the international community which sees it as a first step towards a lasting ceasefire. This truce “cannot only be a pause,” the Palestinian ambassador to the UN pleaded on Wednesday, calling for it to be used to prevent the Israeli “resumption of aggression”.
Strikes on Khan Younes
The agreement was announced on 47e day of the war, triggered by an attack of unprecedented scale and violence in the history of Israel carried out on October 7 by Hamas on Israeli soil. According to the authorities, 1,200 people, the vast majority civilians, were killed.
Around 240 people were kidnapped on the day of the attack.
In retaliation, Israel, which has promised to “annihilate” the Palestinian Islamist movement, is relentlessly bombing the Gaza Strip, where more than 14,000 people have been killed, including more than 5,800 children, according to the Hamas government which took action there. power in 2007.
The fighting continued throughout the night over the territory of some 360 km2besieged since October 9 by Israel, which has cut off water, electricity and fuel supplies there and has been carrying out a ground offensive since October 27.
The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported “dozens” of deaths in different sectors of Gaza.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is taking part in the fighting, reported clashes in the heart of Gaza City in the north. In the south, the strikes targeted the region of Khan Younes, from where immense columns of black smoke rose, lit by bomb explosions.
“I think there are still around 20 people under the rubble,” a Palestinian searching for survivors in a destroyed building in Bani Souheila, east of the city, told AFP.
Dozens of unidentified people, who died in hospitals in the north of the territory, were buried Wednesday in a mass grave in a cemetery in Khan Younes.
In Gaza City (north), the director of al-Chifa hospital, Mohammed Abou Salmiya, was arrested with several other executives, according to a doctor at the largest establishment in Gaza. The Israeli army controls the hospital where it is searching underground military infrastructures used according to them by Hamas.
” Difficult choice “
The Israeli government approved the truce agreement despite internal dissension.
“I often have to decide between a difficult choice and an even more difficult choice, and this is particularly the case with the hostages,” Benjamin Netanyahu stressed on Wednesday evening.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raïssi, a supporter of Hamas and whose country does not recognize Israel, for his part considered that “the temporary ceasefire” was “a great victory” for the Islamist movement.
The main association of hostage families declared itself “happy” with an agreement for a “partial release” of hostages, without knowing for the moment “who will be released and when”.
“It gives me hope that my daughters will return,” said Maayan Zin, a mother of two children held in Gaza.
In occupied East Jerusalem, Palestinian Samira Douayyat spoke of the possible release of her daughter Shourouk, 26, who will have served half of her 16-year prison sentence. “I cry, I laugh, I tremble,” she told AFP.
Insufficient truce
The bombings have devastated the Palestinian territory and caused a serious humanitarian crisis according to the UN, including the displacement of more than 1.7 million of the 2.4 million inhabitants of Gaza, where aid is trickling in.
The truce will allow the entry of “a greater number of humanitarian and aid convoys, including fuel” than currently, Qatar said.
Some 200 to 300 aid trucks will enter Gaza, including eight with fuel and gas, said Hamas executive Taher al-Nounou.
But this truce is “insufficient” to bring the necessary aid into Gaza, several international NGOs have stressed, calling for a real ceasefire while many trucks are waiting for the Israeli green light to pass through the Rafah crossing.
“Before the war, we worked two or three days before a break. Today, we have been in the same place for seven days without moving,” Egyptian driver Alaa Moustafa told AFP. Before these hostilities, the Gaza Strip had been subject to a strict Israeli blockade for 16 years.
Despite the agreement, Israel said the war would continue. “We are not stopping the war. We will continue until victory, we continue (military operations) in other sectors” controlled by Hamas, Israeli Chief of Staff General Herzi Halevi said Thursday during a review of troops in Gaza, according to the Israeli army.
“We confirm that our hands will remain on the trigger,” warned the Islamist movement, classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
“Are they talking about a truce? A truce with injuries, deaths and destroyed houses? We don’t want a truce if we can’t return to our homes, we don’t want a truce for a little food,” said Maysara al-Sabbagh, 42, who took refuge in Khan Younes.
Hezbollah and Houthis
The war has raised fears of a regional escalation as Hamas’s pro-Iranian allies, Lebanese Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthis, target Israeli territory.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for at least ten attacks on various Israeli border positions on Thursday, claiming to have caused victims. The Israeli army responded with artillery fire on southern Lebanon, according to the official Lebanese agency.
In the Red Sea, a US warship on Thursday intercepted explosive drones launched from Yemen by Houthi rebels, according to the United States.