JERUSALEM/CAIRO — Israel’s cabinet has approved a deal with Palestinian militant group Hamas for a ceasefire and the release of hostages in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced on Saturday, a day before the agreement is set to begin.
The government ratified the agreement in the early hours of Saturday after meeting for more than six hours, potentially putting an end to the 15-month-old war in the Palestinian enclave controlled by Hamas.
“The government has approved a framework for the hostages’ return. “The framework for the hostages’ release will take effect on Sunday,” Netanyahu’s office said in a brief statement.
Israeli warplanes have continued to launch heavy attacks on Gaza since the cease-fire was agreed upon. Medics in Gaza reported that an Israeli airstrike early Saturday killed five people in a tent in the Mawasi area west of Khan Younis in the enclave’s south.
This brought the total number of Palestinians killed by Israeli bombardment to 119 since the agreement was announced on Wednesday.
Following the Israeli cabinet’s approval, lead US negotiator Brett McGurk stated that the plan was on track.
The ceasefire will take effect at 0630 GMT on Sunday, according to a Qatari foreign ministry spokesman posted on X. The White House expects three female hostages to be released to Israel by the Red Cross in the afternoon.
“We have finalized every single detail of this agreement. “We are quite confident… it is ready for implementation on Sunday,” McGurk told CNN from the White House.
The three-stage ceasefire agreement begins with a six-week phase in which Hamas hostages will be exchanged for Israeli prisoners and detainees.
This phase will see the release of 33 of the 98 remaining Israeli hostages, including women, children, men over the age of 50, and ill and wounded captives. In exchange, Israel will release nearly 2,000 Palestinians from its prisons.
They include 737 male, female, and teen-aged prisoners, some of whom are members of Palestinian militant groups convicted of attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, as well as hundreds of Gaza-based Palestinians detained since the war began.
The Israeli Justice Ministry released their information early on Saturday, along with the cease-fire agreement, which stated that 30 Palestinian prisoners would be released for every female hostage on Sunday.
Following Sunday’s hostage release, McGurk stated that the accord calls for the release of four more female hostages after seven days, followed by three more hostages every seven days after that.
HARD-LINERS OPPOSE CEASEFIRE
With the accord bitterly opposed by some Israeli cabinet hard-liners, media reports said 24 ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition government voted in favour of the deal while eight opposed it.
The opponents claimed that the ceasefire agreement represented a surrender to Hamas. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has threatened to resign if the bill is approved, and he has urged other ministers to reject it. However, he stated that he would not bring down the government.
His fellow hardliner, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, has threatened to leave the government if it does not return to war to defeat Hamas after the first six weeks of the ceasefire.
Following a last-minute delay on Thursday blamed on Hamas, Israel’s security cabinet approved the ceasefire agreement on Friday, a requirement before the full cabinet vote.
Israel launched its assault on Hamas in Gaza after the group’s fighters stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages, according to Israeli estimates.
According to Gaza authorities, the war between Israeli forces and Hamas has destroyed much of Gaza’s heavily urbanized areas, killed over 46,000 people, and displaced the majority of the enclave’s prewar population of 2.3 million multiple times.
If successful, the ceasefire could reduce hostilities in the Middle East, where fighting has spread to Iran and its proxies, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, and Iraqi armed groups, as well as the occupied West Bank.
Hunger, cold, and sickness have caused a humanitarian crisis among Gazan civilians. The cease-fire agreement calls for an increase in assistance, and international organizations have aid trucks lined up on Gaza’s borders to deliver food, fuel, medicine, and other critical supplies.
The Palestinian relief agency UNRWA announced on Friday that it has 4,000 truckloads of aid, half of which is food, ready to enter the coastal strip.
Palestinians queuing for food in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday expressed hope that a truce would put an end to hours of waiting to fill one plate.
“I hope it will happen so we’ll be able to cook in our homes and make whatever food we want, without having to go to soup kitchens and exhaust ourselves for three or four hours trying to get (food) – sometimes not even making it home,” displaced Palestinian Reeham Sheikh al-Eid stated.
