The truce in the fighting between Israel and Hamas will begin Friday morning and a first group of 13 hostages will be released in the afternoon, Qatar announced Thursday, with Hamas confirming the exchange with Palestinian prisoners.
What there is to know
- The truce will begin at 7 a.m. local time, 12 a.m. Eastern time on Friday and the first group of civilian hostages will be released around 4 p.m. the same day (9 a.m. Eastern time).
- Hamas’ armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement that the truce “will last four days starting Friday morning and includes a complete cessation of military activities.”
- During this period, “50 Zionist prisoners (hostages, editor’s note) women and children under 19 will be released” in return, for each of them, for the release of “three Palestinian prisoners, women and children”.
- Khaled Abou Samra, head of department at al-Chifa hospital in Gaza City, announced the arrest of the director of the establishment, currently under the control of the Israeli army which says it is looking for Hamas military installations there. .
- The night was particularly hard in the south of the Gaza Strip, with continued strikes on Khan Younes. AFP journalists in Rafah reported that these strikes, although several kilometers away, caused houses in the town bordering Egypt to shake.
- Islamic Jihad, for its part, reported fighting in the heart of Gaza City, in the north, where Israeli troops are also operating on the ground.
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Balance sheets
- According to a latest report from the Hamas government, 14,854 people have been killed in Israeli bombings on the Gaza Strip since October 7, including 6,150 children and 4,000 women.
- On the Israeli side, the Hamas attack left 1,200 dead, mainly civilians killed on October 7, according to the authorities. According to the army, 68 soldiers have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war.
“The humanitarian break will begin at 7 a.m. (00 a.m. Eastern time) on Friday,” said Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari, indicating that 13 women and children hostages held in the band of Gaza would be liberated “around 4 p.m. (9 a.m. Eastern time) the same day”, as Israeli bombardments in the small besieged territory continued Thursday.
Qatar, a key mediator with Egypt and the United States, obtained an agreement on Wednesday on a renewable four-day truce, coupled with an exchange of 50 hostages held in Gaza for 150 Palestinian detainees.
The armed wing of the Islamist movement Hamas confirmed Thursday the start of the truce at 7 a.m. Friday, with “a complete cessation of military activities” for four days, during which 50 hostages, “women and children under the age of 19 », will be released, in return, for each, for the release of “three Palestinian prisoners, women and children”.
PHOTO AHMAD GHARABLI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
In Tel Aviv, an Israeli soldier walks in front of photos of hostages held by Hamas.
Israel said it had “received a first list of names” of hostages. Messages were sent to all the families “whose relatives are on the list, as well as to all the families of people kidnapped,” said former Israeli general Gal Hirsch, contact person for these relatives.
An Israeli official told AFP that Israel would receive a list the evening before with the names of the hostages to be released the next day.
“In order of seniority”
Qatar did not specify the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released on Friday.
Israel had previously released a list of 300 Palestinians likely to be released, including 33 women and 267 young people under the age of 19. Among these detainees, 49 are members of Hamas.
“We set the condition that […] Palestinian women and children prisoners” be released “in order of seniority” in detention, declared Bassem Naïm, senior Hamas executive.
Most of the prisoners are from the occupied West Bank, but five are from Gaza, said the Israeli official, on condition of anonymity. Gazans “will be sent home”, “probably” entering Gaza through an Israeli crossing point in the south of the territory, he continued.
PHOTO VICTOR R. CAIVANO, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ambulances drive near an Israeli tank in the Gaza Strip, November 22, 2023.
On Wednesday, the international community welcomed the agreement, seeing it as a first step towards a lasting ceasefire. This truce “cannot only be a pause”, however, warned the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, calling for it to be used to prevent the “resumption of Israeli aggression”.
The war was triggered by the attack of a scale and violence unprecedented 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 promised to “annihilate” Hamas, relentlessly bombed the Gaza Strip, where 14,854 people were killed, including 6,150 children, according to the Hamas government.
Director of al-Chifa arrested
The strikes continued Thursday on this 360 km territory2where Israel has also been carrying out a ground offensive since October 27.
At least 27 people were killed and 93 others injured in a strike on a UN school in northern Gaza City, a doctor at al-Awda hospital in Jabaliya camp said on condition of anonymity. which he attributes to Israel.
AFP was unable to confirm the origin of the strike and the Israeli army did not immediately react.
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.
PHOTO MAHMUD HAMS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The town of Khan Younes, in the south of the Gaza Strip, November 23, 2023
“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.
In Gaza City, the director of al-Chifa hospital, Mohammed Abou Salmiya, was arrested, according to a doctor at Gaza’s largest facility.
He was “transferred for interrogation,” confirmed Thursday the Israeli army which controls the hospital, where it is searching underground military infrastructures, used according to it by Hamas. The latter, who denies it, had accused Israel of waging a “war against hospitals”. On Thursday, Hamas Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidreh said the Indonesian hospital (north) was “violently bombed”.
“Incredibly difficult”
The Israeli government approved the truce agreement despite internal disagreements.
The main association of hostage families declared itself “happy” with an agreement for a “partial release” of hostages.
Maayan Zin learned that her two daughters were not among those scheduled to be released on Friday.
“This is incredibly difficult for me,” she wrote on X, although “relieving for the other families.”
At least 13 mothers are hostages in Gaza along with their 22 children aged 18 or under, according to a database compiled by AFP.
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 around 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, according to Qatar.
But it is “insufficient” to bring the necessary aid into Gaza, underlined several international NGOs, calling for a real ceasefire.
Despite the agreement, Israel said the war would continue. “We are not stopping the war. We will continue until victory,” Israeli Chief of Staff General Herzi Halevi said Thursday, according to the army.
“We confirm that our hands will remain on the trigger,” warned the Palestinian movement, classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
“A truce to bring in aid, we don’t want that. We want to return home,” said Maysara Assabagh, 42, who has taken refuge in Khan Younès.
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 twenty attacks on various Israeli border positions on Thursday. The Israeli army said it responded, notably targeting rocket launch sites in Lebanon.