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A ceasefire A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was scheduled to begin Sunday morning, ending a brutal 15-month war in Gaza and paving the way for Hamas’ liberation. the hostage Shattered enclaves still held by Palestinian militant groups.
A six-week ceasefire – the first phase of a multiphase agreement to thrash out US-led mediators It was due to take effect at 08.30 local time (06.30 GMT) last week — after months of failed attempts to reach an agreement.
If the ceasefire holds, Hamas will release three of the 98 hostages it is holding in Gaza later Sunday. In return, Israel will release 90 Palestinian prisoners.
But in a sign of the system’s fragility, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said just an hour before the deal went into effect that it would not begin unless Hamas named the hostages due to be released to Israel on Sunday. .
Minutes later, Hamas said in a statement that it was committed to the ceasefire and that the delay in releasing the names was “due to technical reasons”.
The multiphase deal offers hope for halting — and possibly ending — the bloodiest war in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has left Gaza in ruins, engulfed Israeli society and brought the Middle East to a brink. Total war
The war was sparked by an Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas in Israel, during which the militants killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, and took another 250 hostage in the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
According to Palestinian officials, Israel responded with a devastating offensive in Gaza, which killed more than 46,000 people, as well as displaced 2.3 million people in the coastal enclave and caused a humanitarian disaster.
After more than half a year of failed attempts to broker a ceasefire, mediators announced last week that Israel and Hamas had agreed to a three-phase deal, first set out by US President Joe Biden in May last year.
The first phase involves a six-week ceasefire, during which Hamas will release a total of 33 hostages — including children, women, the sick and the elderly — in exchange for about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners.
The first phase of the deal would allow displaced Palestinians to return to their homes, including northern Gaza. There will also be a partial withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and a massive flow of humanitarian aid to the enclave.
If the deal goes ahead as planned, by the 16th day of the first phase, Israel and Hamas will begin negotiating the details of the second phase of the deal, during which the remaining hostages will be released in exchange for hundreds more Palestinian prisoners, complete. Withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a permanent end to the war.
The final phase will include the return of the remaining bodies of hostages killed by Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations, as well as the start of the reconstruction of Gaza.
However, there are questions over whether the deal will be fully implemented, with Netanyahu under intense pressure from right-wing members of his coalition to resume fighting at the end of the first phase of the deal.
On Saturday evening, far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gavir said his Jewish Power party would quit the government in protest at the deal, reducing Netanyahu’s majority in Israel’s 120-seat parliament to just two seats.
Ben-Gavir’s ultra-nationalist ally, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, threatened to kick his Religious Zionist party out of government if fighting did not resume after the first phase of the accord. If he does, it would deprive Netanyahu of his parliamentary majority.
