Israel approves ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas, beginning Sunday

Smoke rises from explosions above destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza strip on January 16, 2025.
CNN | Published January 18, 2025

Israel’s government approved a ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas, paving the way for the agreement to take effect Sunday and potentially signalling a new chapter in a bloody 15-month conflict that has enflamed the Middle East.

The 33-member cabinet deliberated for more than seven hours into early Saturday before green-lighting the agreement, according to a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. There were 24 votes in favour of the deal and eight against, an Israeli official told CNN, with communications minister Shlomo Karhi abstaining.

Approved earlier by Israel’s smaller security cabinet after being thrashed out by negotiators in Doha, the deal will pause the fighting in Gaza, and lead to the release of dozens of Israeli hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

It also offers an opportunity for humanitarian workers to shuttle much-needed aid into the battered enclave, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are starving, according to the United Nations, and living conditions are dire.

Sunday’s ceasefire will take effect at 8:30 a.m. local time (1:30 a.m. ET), Israel said.

It will be the second ceasefire since the war started on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants launched an attack on Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli authorities. The military offensive launched by Israel in response has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians and injured more than 110,000 in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its figures.

Though Israel’s Supreme Court will still hear appeals by Israelis opposing freedom for any Palestinian prisoners slated for release, that process is not expected to delay the start of the ceasefire.

The deal has three phases. The first, expected to last six weeks, will see the release of 33 Israeli hostages and 735 Palestinian prisoners. Foreign hostages, including Americans, are expected to be released in addition to the 33 Israeli hostages, a source familiar told CNN Friday.

Three female Israeli civilian hostages held in Gaza are expected to be released on the first day, according to two US officials. Ninety-five Palestinian prisoners are set to be released after 4 p.m. local time Sunday, Israel’s Ministry of Justice said.

Hamas and its allies still hold 94 people taken from Israel 15 months ago. At least 34 of them are dead, according to the Israeli government, though the true number is expected to be higher.

All but 10 of the 94 hostages are Israeli or dual citizens, while eight are from Thailand, one is from Nepal, and one is from Tanzania, according to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.

Negotiations for the second and third phases of the ceasefire will begin on the 16th day of the implementation of the deal, according to an Israeli official.

A joint operations room will be established in Cairo to monitor the implementation of the deal and will include representatives from Egypt, Qatar, the United States, Israel, and Palestinian officials, according to Egypt’s state-affiliated Al Qahera News, citing a senior Egyptian official.

Humanitarian relief

Under the deal, humanitarian aid into Gaza will be ramped up to 600 trucks per day, a significant increase from the 614 truckloads of aid that entered Gaza in the first two weeks of January, according to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Hundreds of aid trucks carrying food, clothing, medical supplies and other relief materials, are lined up at the Rafah border crossing in anticipation of the deal going into effect Sunday, Al Qahera News reported. The trucks came from various areas of the Egyptian region of North Sinai, and some have been waiting for months, the news outlet said.

However, the United Nations warned Thursday the increased aid allotment would be “only a start” in addressing the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

The breakthrough in talks has inspired fresh – yet cautious – hope among the families of Israeli hostages still trapped in Gaza, many of whom do not know if their relatives are dead or alive.

“Nobody knows the fate of their loved one for sure,” Sharone Lifschitz, whose father has been held hostage in Gaza since October 7, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “If he has stayed alive, it’s a wonderful miracle.”

The start of the ceasefire Sunday will be a reprieve for Gazans who have endured 15 months of relentless Israeli strikes, which have reduced much of the enclave to rubble.

Scenes of jubilation emerged across Gaza shortly after mediator Qatar announced Wednesday that Israel and Hamas had come to the agreement, though Israel’s bombardment has ramped up in the days since.

Israeli strikes have killed more than 122 people since the ceasefire deal was announced, including 33 children, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense.

The first ceasefire, in November 2023, lasted about a week. In that period, 105 hostages being held by Hamas – primarily women, children and elderly people – were released, while Israel released about 240 Palestinian prisoners from its jails.

Netanyahu faced major political fallout ahead of the cabinet meeting to approve the deal, with two far-right parties threatening to quit the government if the deal went through – a move that could cause the prime minister to lose his majority in the Knesset, or parliament.

Netanyahu told his security cabinet on Friday that he received “guarantees” from negotiators that the US would back a return to war if future talks with Hamas break down, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

 

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SOURCE: www.cnn.com

RELATED: Israeli security cabinet approves Gaza ceasefire deal

This handout picture released by the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO) shows Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (5-R), heading a security cabinet meeting to vote on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal that should take effect ton January 19, in Jerusalem on January 17, 2025. If approved, the agreement would halt fighting and bombardment in Gaza’s deadliest-ever war and initiate on Sunday the release of dozens of hostages held in the territory since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. (Photo by Koby Gideon / GPO / AFP) /
THE PHILIPPINES DAILY INQUIRER | Published January 18, 2025

JERUSALEM — Israel’s security cabinet approved in a vote on Friday a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal that should take effect this weekend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.

The agreement, which must now go to the full cabinet for a final green light, would halt fighting and bombardment in Gaza’s deadliest-ever war.

It would also launch on Sunday the release of hostages held in the territory since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

Under the deal struck by Qatar, the United States and Egypt, the ensuing weeks should also see the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

The justice ministry on Friday published a list of 95 Palestinians to be freed starting Sunday, “subject to government approval.”

They include 69 women, 16 men, and 10 minors.

The Israel Prison Service said it would prevent any “public displays of joy” when Palestinian prisoners are released.

Israeli strikes have killed dozens since the ceasefire deal was announced. The military said on Thursday it had hit about 50 targets across Gaza over the previous 24 hours.

The cabinet will convene later Friday to approve the deal. The ceasefire would take effect on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president.

Saying the proposed deal “supports achieving the objectives of the war”, Netanyahu’s office announced that the security cabinet recommended that the government approve it.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said in a statement Friday the Palestinian Authority has completed preparations “to assume full responsibility in Gaza” after the war.

Even before the truce begins, displaced Gazans were preparing to return home.

“I will go to kiss my land,” said Nasr al-Gharabli, who fled his home in Gaza City for a camp further south. “If I die on my land, it would be better than being here as a displaced person.”

In Israel, there was joy but also anguish over the remaining hostages taken in the Hamas attack.

Kfir Bibas, whose second birthday falls on Saturday, is the youngest hostage.

Hamas said in November 2023 that Kfir, his four-year-old brother Ariel, and their mother Shiri had died in an air strike, but with the Israeli military yet to confirm their deaths, many are clinging to hope.

“I think of them, these two little redheads, and I get shivers,” said 70-year-old Osnat Nyska, whose grandchildren attended nursery with the Bibas brothers.

‘Confident’

Two far-right ministers have voiced opposition to the deal, with one threatening to quit the cabinet, but US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he believed the ceasefire would proceed.

“I am confident, and I fully expect that implementation will begin, as we said, on Sunday,” he said.

Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israel pounded several areas of the territory, killing more than 100 people and wounding hundreds more since the deal was announced on Wednesday.

Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, warned that Israeli strikes were risking the lives of hostages and could turn their “freedom… into a tragedy.”

The October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Of the 251 people taken hostage, 94 are still in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military declared dead.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has destroyed much of Gaza, killing 46,876 people, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.

Trump and Biden

The ceasefire agreement followed intensified efforts from mediators after months of fruitless negotiations, with Trump’s team taking credit for working with US President Joe Biden’s administration to seal the deal.

“If we weren’t involved… the deal would’ve never happened,” Trump said in an interview Thursday.

A senior Biden official said the unlikely pairing had been a decisive factor.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, announcing the agreement on Wednesday, said an initial 42-day ceasefire would see 33 hostages released, including women, “children, elderly people, as well as civilian ill people and wounded.”

The Israeli authorities assume the 33 are alive, but Hamas has yet to confirm that.

Also in the first phase, Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza’s densely populated areas and allow displaced Palestinians to return “to their residences,” he said.

Two sources close to Hamas told AFP three Israeli women soldiers would be the first to be released on Sunday evening.

The women may in fact be civilians, as the militant group refers to all Israelis of military age who have undergone mandatory military service as soldiers.

Once released they would be received by Red Cross staff and Egyptian and Qatari teams and taken to Egypt for medical examinations before returning to Israel, one source said on condition of anonymity.

Israel “is then expected to release the first group of Palestinian prisoners, including several with high sentences,” the source added.

Egypt was on Friday hosting technical talks on the implementation of the truce, state-linked media reported.

French President Emmanuel Macron said French-Israeli citizens Ofer Kalderon and Ohad Yahalomi were among the hostages to be freed in the first phase.

Biden said the second phase could bring a “permanent end to the war.”

In aid-starved Gaza, where nearly all of its 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once, aid workers worry about the monumental task ahead.

“Everything has been destroyed, children are on the streets, you can’t pinpoint just one priority,” Doctors Without Borders coordinator Amande Bazerolle told AFP.

 

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SOURCE: www.globalnation.inquirer.net

 

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