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By Alexander Cornwell and Nidal al-Mughrabi
JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) – Israel’s cabinet has approved an agreement with the Palestinian militant group Hamas for a ceasefire and the release of hostages in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Saturday, a day before the deal was to begin. planned.
In the early hours of Saturday after more than six hours of meetings, the government confirmed an agreement that could pave the way for an end to the 15-month conflict in the Palestinian territory, which Hamas controls.
“The government approved the plan to return the hostages. The plan for the release of the hostages will come into effect on Sunday,” Netanyahu’s office said in a short statement.
In Gaza, Israeli warplanes have maintained heavy attacks since the ceasefire was agreed. Gaza medics said that an Israeli airstrike on Saturday morning killed five people in a tent in Mawasi area west of Khan Younis in the south of the enclave.
This brought to 119 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli bombs since the agreement was announced on Wednesday.
After the approval of the Israeli cabinet, the chief US spokesman Brett McGurk said that the plan is moving in the right direction.
The ceasefire will come into effect at 0630 GMT on Sunday, a spokesman for the Qatari foreign ministry has been sent to X. The White House expects that three female hostages will be released in Israel in the afternoon by the Red Cross.
“We have closed every point in this agreement. We are very confident … it is ready to be implemented on Sunday,” McGurk told CNN from the White House.
Under this agreement, the three-phase ceasefire begins with the first phase of six weeks when Hamas hostages will be exchanged for prisoners and prisoners held in Israel.
Thirty-three of the 98 remaining captives in Israel, including women, children, men over 50 and sick and wounded captives, will be released in this phase. In return, Israel will release approximately 2,000 Palestinians from its prisons.
They include 737 male, female and juvenile prisoners, some of whom are members of Palestinian militant groups convicted of attacks that have killed dozens of Israelis, as well as hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza who were imprisoned since the start of the war.
The Israeli Ministry of Justice announced its details early Saturday, along with the ceasefire agreement, which states that 30 Palestinian prisoners will be released for every female prisoner on Sunday.
After the release of the hostages on Sunday, McGurk said, the agreement calls for the release of four more detainees within seven days, and the release of three other hostages to follow within seven days. after that.
HAPPY AFFAIRS ARE JUST AGAINST
With the agreement strongly opposed by some opponents of the Israeli cabinet, media reports said that 24 ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition government voted for the agreement while eight opposed it.
Opponents said the ceasefire represented a capitulation to Hamas. National Defense Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened to resign if it was approved and urged other ministers to vote against it. However, he said he will not bring down the government.
His deputy, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, also threatened to quit the government if it did not return to fighting to defeat Hamas after the first phase of the six-week ceasefire.
After a last-minute delay on Thursday that Israel blamed on Hamas, Israel’s defense cabinet voted on Friday in favor of a ceasefire, a requirement before full cabinet elections.
Israel launched its attack on Hamas in Gaza after the group’s fighters entered Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 250 into exile, according to Israeli figures.
Fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas has devastated much of urban Gaza, killing more than 46,000 people and displacing most of its pre-war population of 2.3 million several times, according to Gaza officials. .
If successful, the ceasefire could reduce hostilities elsewhere in the Middle East, where the conflict has spread to include Iran and its proxies – Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and armed groups in Iraq – as well as the occupied West Bank. .
The people of Gaza are facing a humanitarian crisis due to hunger, cold and disease. The ceasefire agreement calls for an increase in aid, and international organizations have aid trucks lined up at Gaza’s borders to bring in food, fuel, medicine and other essential supplies.
The Palestinian aid agency UNRWA said on Friday that it has 4,000 truckloads of aid, half of which is food, ready to go to the beach.
Palestinians waiting for food in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday said they hoped peace would mean an end to hours of queuing to fill one plate.
“I hope it will happen that we will be able to cook in our own homes and make any food we want, without going to soup kitchens and bothering ourselves for three or four hours trying to find (food) – sometimes we don’t even go home,” said Reeham Sheikh al-Eid from Palestine.
