TEL AVIV:
Israel approved a ceasefire deal with Hamas on Saturday that includes the release of hostages in the Gaza Strip, and Israeli forces carried out new attacks in the enclave ahead of the deal’s scheduled start on Sunday .
The three-phase deal is expected to end a 15-month-old war between Israel and Gaza’s ruler Hamas, which has decimated the Gaza Strip, killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and destabilized the Middle East. The war was sparked by the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli counts.
Since then, more than 400 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat in Gaza. The Israeli cabinet ratified the ceasefire agreement which aims to end the fighting and allow the release of dozens of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for dozens of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.
The ceasefire in Gaza will come into effect on Sunday at 06:30 GMT. The White House expects three female hostages to be released to Israel this afternoon through the Red Cross. Thirty-three of the remaining 98 Israeli hostages, including women, children, men over 50 and sick and injured prisoners, are to be released during the first phase of the ceasefire.
In exchange, Israel will release nearly 2,000 Palestinians from its prisons. Among them are 737 prisoners, men, women and teenagers, some of whom are members of groups convicted of attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, as well as hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza detained since the start of the war.
The Israeli Justice Ministry released the details Saturday morning, along with the ceasefire agreement, which calls for 30 Palestinian prisoners to be released for every female hostage on Sunday. After the hostages were released on Sunday, lead U.S. negotiator Brett McGurk said, the deal calls for the release of four additional hostages after seven days, followed by the release of three more hostages every seven days thereafter.
Its first stage will last six weeks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was still awaiting the release of a list of hostages and reserved the right to resume the war, with US support, if the second stage of the ceasefire ends. proved futile.
“If we must resume fighting, we will do so in new and energetic ways,” Netanyahu said in a video statement. In Gaza, Israeli military planes have continued their attacks since the deal was reached and pounded the territory on Saturday.
Israeli tanks shelled Gaza City and airstrikes hit central and southern Gaza, residents said. Medics in Gaza said five people were killed in an airstrike that hit a tent in the Mawasi area, west of the town of Khan Younis.
The Israeli military said that since Friday it had struck Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters, who were among 50 “terrorist targets” it struck across Gaza. Nearly 47,000 people have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, including 123 killed in Israeli strikes since the ceasefire agreement was announced on Wednesday, according to the Palestinian health services. ’emergency.
With some Israeli cabinet members opposing the Gaza deal, media reported that 24 ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition government voted in favor of the deal while eight opposed it. One of them was far-right Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who said his party’s ministers would submit resignation letters on Sunday.
MISSILES
The conflict in Gaza sent shockwaves throughout the region, sparking a war with the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and putting Israel in direct conflict with Iran for the first time. Yemen’s Houthis, also backed by Iran, have carried out hundreds of attacks on what they say are Israel-linked cargo ships traveling via the Red Sea and have fired missiles at Israel, which has responded with airstrikes in Yemen.
At least two missiles were fired from Yemen on Saturday, the Israeli military said, setting off air raid sirens over Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the southern resort of Eilat before being intercepted.
In Tel Aviv, a Palestinian stabbed and injured a person, police said, before being shot dead by a passerby. His condition was not immediately clear.
