Israel and Hamas have agreed to a temporary pause in the war that will allow the release of around 50 people held captive in Gaza since the Hamas armed group stormed southern Israel on October 7, in exchange of Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons.
The Israeli cabinet backed the deal after negotiations over a Qatar-brokered deal continued into the early hours of Wednesday morning, with Israeli media reporting heated exchanges between ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government .
In the end, only three of the 38 cabinet members voted against the truce: National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and two other members of his far-right political party.
The prime minister’s office said the agreement would require Hamas to release at least 50 women and children during a four-day truce. For every 10 additional hostages released, the break would be extended by one day, he said, without mentioning the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange.
“The Israeli government is committed to repatriating all the hostages home. This evening, he approved the proposed agreement as a first step to achieve this goal,” he said in his brief statement.
Hamas, which controls Gaza, also issued a statement confirming that 50 women and children detained in the territory would be released in exchange for Israel’s release of 150 Palestinian women and children from Israeli prisons.
He said Israel would also cease all military actions in Gaza and that hundreds of trucks carrying humanitarian, medical aid and fuel would be allowed to enter the territory.
The deal is the first truce in a war in which Israel has razed large swathes of Gaza, home to about 2.3 million people. Palestinian officials say at least 14,100 people have been killed, while the United Nations says around 1.7 million people have been forced from their homes. Hamas killed at least 1,200 people in its attack on Israel.
Officials from Qatar, the United States, Israel and Hamas have suggested for days that a deal was imminent.
In a statement released later, Qatar confirmed the “success” of the mediation efforts, in which Egypt and the United States also participated, and confirmed the broad parameters of the agreement.
“The start time of the break will be announced in the next 24 hours and will last four days, subject to extension,” the statement said.
He confirmed that humanitarian aid would be sent to Gaza and that 50 women and children held captive would be released in exchange for “a number of Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons.”
The “number of people released will be increased during the subsequent stages of the implementation of the agreement,” he adds without going into details.
Thanking the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and the President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, for their “critical leadership and partnership,” US President Joe Biden welcomed the agreement.
“I look forward to speaking with each of these leaders and remaining in close contact as we work to ensure this agreement is completed in its entirety,” the White House said in a statement. “It is important that all aspects of this agreement are fully implemented. »
Pressure
Before the meeting to discuss the deal, Netanyahu thanked Biden for his work to include more prisoners and fewer concessions in the deal.
“It took significant American pressure to get this deal done, which really shows what it will take in terms of American pressure to put in place something more permanent, if not a transition to some sort of Palestinian autonomy,” he said. said James Dorsey, an honorary fellow of the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore, told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Netanyahu stressed that Israel had no intention of ending the conflict.
“We are at war and we will continue the war until we have achieved all our objectives,” he said in a recorded message. “Destroy Hamas, return all our hostages and ensure that no entity in Gaza can threaten Israel. »
Some analysts nevertheless believe that the international community should take advantage of this pause to try to end the fighting in a more lasting way.
“In the coming days, more aid will arrive, more fuel, hopefully more medical supplies and the most seriously injured can be evacuated, but beyond that, in these next few days of pause, it It will be necessary to exert massive pressure on Israel so that it does not do this again. the fighting at the end of that period,” said Antony Loewenstein, an independent journalist and author based in Australia.
About 237 captives from Israel and several other countries are believed to be in Gaza, and Biden said some Americans would be released during the upcoming break. Other foreign nationals are not believed to be part of the deal.
Hamas has released only four captives since the kidnappings more than a month ago – an American mother and her daughter and two elderly Israeli women.
He said some of the captives were killed during Israeli bombardments.
The al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, which also participated in the October 7 Hamas raid, announced Tuesday evening that one of the Israelis it held captive had died.
“We had previously expressed our willingness to release her for humanitarian reasons, but the enemy was procrastinating and this led to her death,” they said on their Telegram channel.