Israel will not continue the process of stopping the war in Gaza until it receives a list of 33 hostages that Hamas should release in the first phase of the agreement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
"We will not move forward with the agreement until we receive a list of hostages who will be released, as agreed. Israel will not tolerate any violation of the agreement. Sole responsibility lies with Hamas," Netanyahu said.
He also stated that Israel will not relent until all hostages are released, and stated that the ceasefire agreement was reached in cooperation with the administrations of both Joseph Biden and Donald Trump.
(Radio Free Europe)
A ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip will take effect on Sunday at 8:30 a.m. local time (07:30 a.m. Eastern European time), Qatar, the mediator in reaching the agreement, announced today.
Families of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza for more than a year are preparing to welcome them, Palestinians are preparing to accept compatriots released from Israeli prisons, while humanitarian groups are rushing to prepare to increase aid deliveries to all of Gaza.
The Israeli government's decision to approve the deal last night in a rare meeting during the Jewish Sabbath has sparked a flurry of activity and a new wave of emotion as relatives wonder whether the hostages will be returned dead or alive. The names of the first hostages to be released are expected to be announced in advance.
The ceasefire after 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 brief ceasefire.
The first phase of the ceasefire will last 42 days, and negotiations on a much more difficult second phase are due to begin in just over two weeks. After those six weeks, the Israeli security cabinet will decide how to proceed.
Israeli airstrikes continued today, and the Gaza Health Ministry said 23 bodies had been brought to hospitals in the previous 24 hours.
"What kind of truce is this that they are killing us hours before it starts?" asked Abdallah Al-Akkad, whose sister was killed in an airstrike in the southern city of Khan Younis. Health officials said her husband and their two children, aged two and seven, were also killed.
Sirens sounded across central and southern Israel on Monday, and the military said it had intercepted missiles fired from Yemen. The Iran-backed Houthi rebels there have stepped up attacks in recent weeks, calling them solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
In a post on the X platform, Qatar's foreign minister advised Palestinians and others to be cautious when the ceasefire comes into effect and to await instructions from officials.
"The first thing I'm going to do is go and 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 "worried that one of us could still be killed before we meet."
In the first phase of the ceasefire, 33 Gaza hostages are to be released over six weeks in exchange for 737 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. The Israeli Justice Ministry has released a list of the prisoners, all of whom are young or female.
According to the ceasefire plan approved by the Israeli government, the exchange will begin on Sunday at 16:00 p.m. local time (15:00 p.m. Eastern European time).
The plan says three live hostages will be returned on the first day, four on the seventh day of the ceasefire, and the remaining 26 over the next five weeks. During each exchange, Israel will release Palestinian detainees, but only after the hostages have arrived safely in Israel.
Also released will be 1.167 Gazans who were not involved in the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war. All women and children under the age of 19 from Israeli-held Gaza will be released during this phase.
All Palestinian prisoners convicted of deadly attacks will be exiled to Gaza or abroad - some for three years, others permanently, and banned from returning to Israel or the West Bank.
The remaining hostages in Gaza, including male soldiers, will be released in a second phase to be negotiated during phase one. Hamas has said it will not release the remaining prisoners without a permanent ceasefire and a complete Israeli withdrawal.
Also during the first phase of the ceasefire, Israeli troops are to withdraw to a buffer zone about a kilometer wide inside Gaza, along its border with Israel.
This will allow many displaced Palestinians to return to their homes, including Gaza City and the largely isolated and devastated northern Gaza Strip. With most of Gaza's population sheltering in massive, squalid tent camps, Palestinians are desperate to return to their homes, many of which have been destroyed or badly damaged.
Gaza is also expected to receive more food, medical supplies and other humanitarian aid. Trucks carrying these have been lined up since Friday on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing into Gaza.
Today, 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 evacuated wounded, the Egyptian Ministry of Health announced.
The ceasefire plan approved by the Israeli government states that all trucks entering Gaza will be subject to Israeli inspections.
The Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, killed about 1.200 people and captured about 250. Nearly 100 hostages remain in Gaza.
Israel responded with an offensive that killed more than 46.000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities who do not distinguish between civilians and militants, but say women and children account for more than half of the dead.
(Beta)
The Israeli Justice Ministry today published a list of 735 Palestinian prisoners who will be released from Israeli prisons in accordance with a ceasefire agreement with the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, Israeli media reported.
The list was released hours after the Israeli government approved the ceasefire agreement.
The Justice Ministry said the Palestinian prisoners would be released no later than 16.00:XNUMX p.m. local time on Sunday, the day the exchange would begin.
The list includes members of the extremist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, some of whom are serving life sentences and have been convicted of serious crimes such as murder.
At least 23 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory's Health Ministry said today.
The death toll since the start of Israel's war against Hamas is 46.899, the ministry said a day before the ceasefire agreement came into effect.
At least 110.725 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began on October 7, 2023.
(Beta, Ne.V.)
Explosions were heard over Jerusalem today and sirens sounded, the Agence France-Presse reported, a day before the entry into force of a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip and the release of hostages after more than 15 months of war.
The Israeli military said missiles were launched at Israel from Yemen, and sirens also sounded in the central part of the country.
The military also said it had intercepted the missile.
Yemen's Houthi rebels launched attacks on Israeli territory at the start of the Gaza Strip war, claiming "solidarity" with the Palestinians.
The Houthis warned on Thursday, following the announced ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, that they would continue attacks if Israel did not respect the terms of the ceasefire.
The Houthis, along with Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah, form what Iran calls the "axis of resistance" against Israel.
Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem congratulated the Palestinians on a ceasefire agreement in Gaza on Wednesday, saying it proved the "perseverance of the resistance" against Israel, Reuters reported, citing his first comments since Israel and Hamas reached a deal on Wednesday.
"This deal, which remains unchanged from what was proposed in May 2024, proves the persistence of the resistance groups, who took what they wanted, while Israel was unable to take what it asked for," said the leader of a Lebanese militant group backed by Iran.
The ceasefire in Gaza will take effect on Sunday at 7:30 Central European Time.
This was announced on the X network by a spokesperson for the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to Reuters.
The Israeli government ratified an agreement early this morning on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of hostages, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced, after a meeting that lasted more than six hours, AFP reported.
The ceasefire, which is set to begin on Sunday, means an end to fighting and bombing in the deadliest Gaza war ever.
It would also allow for the release of hostages held by Hamas, an organization designated as terrorist by the European Union and the United States, since the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
The Israeli Ministry of Justice announced that 18 prisoners and detainees will be released during the day, January 737th, as part of the first phase of the agreement.
Since the announcement of the ceasefire agreement, dozens of people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza.
According to AFP, the ceasefire will come into effect on the eve of the inauguration of Donald Trump, who has taken credit for working with outgoing US President Joseph Biden's team to conclude the agreement.
It was previously approved by Israel's security cabinet, and Netanyahu's office said it "supports achieving the goals of the war."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinian Authority had completed preparations to "assume full responsibility in Gaza" after the war.
The conflict erupted in October 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked settlements in southern Israel, killing, according to Israeli figures, about 1.200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages to Gaza.
Israel responded by launching a devastating offensive on the Palestinian enclave in which, according to health authorities in Hamas-controlled Gaza, 46.788 people were killed, 110.453 were wounded, and the majority of the population was displaced.
The Israeli military operation has destroyed large parts of Gaza and forced about 90 percent of Gaza's 2,3 million residents to flee their homes. Hundreds of thousands of people are battling hunger and disease in unsanitary refugee camps on the Gaza Strip's coast.
(Radio Slobodna Evropa, Ne.V.)
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