Israel-Hamas truce to begin Thursday
Will be extended as more hostages are released
A four-day truce between Israel and Hamas will begin Thursday morning, Hamas leaders and Egyptian officials said Wednesday as details of the hostage-release deal began to emerge.
Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy chairman of the Hamas political bureau, told Al Jazeera the temporary cease-fire will start at 10 a.m. local time (3 a.m. EST). Egypt’s state-run Qahera TV issued a similar report; Egypt, Qatar and the United States helped broker the deal announced late Tuesday.
The deal calls for Hamas to free 50 of the estimated 240 hostages being held in the Gaza Strip over a four-day period, with the truce extended an additional day for every 10 hostages released. Israel has said the militant-held hostages being freed will be Israeli citizens or residents. Three of them could be Americans, according to multiple media reports citing unidentified U.S. officials.
Israel has agreed to free 150 women and children from among the hundreds of Palestinians detained since Oct. 7, when militants raced across the border from Gaza on a bloody rampage, killing 1,200 people and taking hundreds hostage, Israel says. Israel struck back with a massive military attack on Gaza. More than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed, the Gaza Health Ministry says.
Details on when and how the hostages would be freed were not immediately revealed.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the deal a “step in the right direction” but said more must be done to permanently end the war.
“I welcome the agreement,” Guterres said Wednesday in a social media post. “The U.N. will mobilize all its capacities to support the implementation and maximize positive impact on the humanitarian situation in Gaza.”
But both sides stressed that the war was not over. “We are at war, and we will continue the war,” Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said when announcing the deal late Tuesday. “We will continue until we achieve all our goals.” High among them, he said, is that “Gaza will not threaten Israel.” He said Israel would resume its offensive against Hamas after the cease-fire expires.
Hamas, in a statement on Telegram, announced it agreed to the deal. “After difficult and complex negotiations for many days, we announce, with the help and success of God Almighty, that we have reached a humanitarian truce agreement,” the Hamas statement said, adding: “While we announce the arrival of a truce agreement, we affirm that our hands will remain on the trigger, and our victorious battalions will remain on the lookout to defend our people and defeat the occupation and aggression.”
President Joe Biden confirmed the deal late Tuesday, vowing that his security team will not stop negotiating to bring Americans home.
“Jill (Biden) and I have been keeping all those held hostage and their loved ones close to our hearts these many weeks, and I am extraordinarily gratified that some of these brave souls, who have endured weeks of captivity and an unspeakable ordeal, will be reunited with their families once this deal is fully implemented,” Biden said.
He added, “Today’s deal is a testament to the tireless diplomacy and determination of many dedicated individuals across the United States Government to bring Americans home.”
Abigail Edan, a 3-year-old Israeli American, was orphaned when her parents were killed by militants. Liz Hirsh
Naftali, Edan’s great-aunt, told CNN about the “excruciating” wait to hear whether her great-niece is being released.
“We have spent the last seven weeks worrying, wondering, praying, hoping,” she said.
When the militants stormed into their Israeli community Oct. 7, Yarden Roman-Gat, 36, handed her 3-year-old daughter to her husband, hoping he could outrun the gunmen. He did − but Yarden has been missing ever since. Her cousin Maya told CNN the family now must wait and hope as the identities of those being released are revealed in coming days.
“My family, like all the other families, is going to go through a terrible week,” Maya Roman said. “We don’t know if my cousin is going to be amongst those released in this round.”
An Israel-based terror victims group, Almagor Terror Victims Association, is challenging the hostage deal, saying it will file court papers aimed at derailing the prisoner-swap agreement, the Times of Israel reports. The group wants a court order requiring the government to demonstrate that the deal does not endanger the lives of Israelis currently held by Hamas. It also wants the court to rule that the government can’t discriminate “between blood and blood” by deciding that one captive will be released and another captive “will remain in the hands of murderers which are dripping with blood.”
Israeli courts have generally rejected similar petitions in the past, ruling its purview does not extend to matters of security and diplomacy.
Pope Francis met Wednesday with family members of hostages seized by Hamas militants as well as relatives of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons. The pope urged an end to the bloodshed and for both sides in the conflict “not be driven by the passions that wind up killing everyone.”
The European Union Crisis Management Commissioner Janez Lenarcic says the halt in fighting must be used to flood Gaza with desperately needed aid. He said fewer than 50 aid trucks a day make it into Gaza, a number which he described as “woefully inadequate.”