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The cease-fire between Hamas and Israel will take effect Sunday at 8:30 a.m. local time (0630 GMT), mediator Qatar announced Saturday, as families of hostages held in Gaza awaited news of loved ones, Palestinians prepared to freed detainees and humanitarian groups rushed to mount a surge of aid.
The overnight approval of the agreement by the Israeli cabinet, in a rare meeting on the Jewish Sabbath, set off a flurry of activity and a fresh wave of emotion as relatives wondered whether hostages would be returned alive or dead. The names of the first hostages who were freed would be released later on Saturday.
The pause in 15 months of war is a step towards ending the deadliest, most destructive fighting ever between Israel and the militant group Hamas – and comes more than a year after the only other ceasefire was reached.
The first phase of the ceasefire will last 42 days, and negotiations on the much more difficult second phase are intended to begin in just over two weeks. After those six weeks, Israel’s security cabinet will decide how to proceed.
Israeli airstrikes continued Saturday, and Gaza’s Ministry of Health said 23 bodies were taken to hospitals in the past 24 hours.
“What is this truce killing us hours before it starts?” asked Abdallah Al-Aqad, the brother of a woman killed by an airstrike in the southern city of Khan Younis. Health officials said a couple and their two children, ages 2 and 7, were dead.
And sirens sounded across central and southern Israel, with the military launching intercepted projectiles from Yemen. Iran-backed Houthi rebels have stepped up attacks in recent weeks, citing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
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In a post on X, Qatar’s foreign minister advised Palestinians and others to exercise caution as the ceasefire goes into effect and wait for instructions from officials.
“The first thing I will do is check my house,” said Mohamed Mahdi, a father of two who was displaced from the Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City. He is also looking forward to seeing family in southern Gaza, but is “still worried that one of us could be martyred before we can meet.”
In the first phase of the ceasefire, 33 hostages in Gaza will be released in six weeks in exchange for 737 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. The Israeli Ministry of Justice has published a list of the prisoners, all of whom are young or female.
According to the cease-fire plan approved by the Israeli cabinet, the exchange will begin at 16:00 (1400 GMT) on Sunday. The plan says that three alive female hostages will be returned on day 1, four on day 7 and the remaining 26 over the next five weeks. During each exchange, Palestinian prisoners will be released by Israel after hostages have arrived safely.
Also to be released are 1,167 residents of Gaza who were not involved in the attack of October 7, 2023, led by Hamas that declared war. All women and children under 19 from Gaza held by Israel will be freed in this phase.
All Palestinian prisoners convicted of deadly attacks will be exiled to Gaza or abroad — some for three years and others permanently — and barred from returning to Israel or the West Bank.
The remaining hostages in Gaza, including male soldiers, are to be released in a second phase to be negotiated in the first. Hamas has said it will not release the remaining prisoners without a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal.
Also, in the first phase of the ceasefire, Israeli forces must withdraw to a buffer zone about a kilometer (0.6 miles) wide inside Gaza, along the borders with Israel.
That will allow many displaced Palestinians to return to their homes, including in Gaza City and largely isolated and devastated northern Gaza. With most of Gaza’s population sheltering in massive, filthy tent camps, Palestinians are desperate to return to their homes, even though many have been destroyed or heavily damaged.
Gaza should also see an increase in food, medical supplies and other humanitarian aid. Trucks were lined up on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing to Gaza on Friday.
On Saturday, two Egyptian government ministers arrived in the northern Sinai Peninsula to oversee preparations for the delivery of aid through the Rafah crossing as well as the Kerem Shalom crossing, and to receive the evacuation of injured patients, the Ministry of Public Health of Egypt.
The cease-fire plan approved by the Israeli cabinet says that all trucks entering Gaza will be subject to Israeli inspections.
The Hamas-led attack on October 7 killed about 1,200 people and imprisoned about 250 others. Almost 100 hostages remain in Gaza.
Israel responded with an offensive that has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and militants, but say women and children make up more than half of the dead.
& copy 2025 The Canadian Press
