TEL AVIV: Israel approved a ceasefire deal with Palestinian militant group Hamas on Saturday that involves releasing hostages in the Gaza Strip, and Israeli forces carried out new attacks in the enclave before the agreement’s scheduled start on Sunday.
The three-phased agreement is set to halt a 15-month-old war between Israel and Gaza’s rulers Hamas that has decimated the Gaza Strip, killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and destabilised the Middle East.
The war was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. More than 400 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat in Gaza since.
The Israeli cabinet ratified the ceasefire deal which is meant to stop fighting and see the release of dozens of hostages held by Hamas in return for scores of Palestinians jailed in Israel. Its first stage will last six weeks.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel was still waiting for a list of hostages to be released and reserved the right to resume the war, with U.S. backing, should the second stage of the ceasefire prove futile.
“If we must return to fighting we will do that in new, forceful ways,“ Netanyahu said in a video statement.
In Gaza, Israeli warplanes have kept up attacks since the deal was agreed, and pounded the territory on Saturday.
Israeli tanks shelled Gaza City and airstrikes hit central and southern Gaza, residents said. Medics in Gaza said five people were killed in an airstrike that hit a tent in the Mawasi area, west of the city of Khan Younis.
The Israeli military said that since Friday it had struck Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters who were among 50 “terror targets” it hit across Gaza.
Nearly 47,000 have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Palestinian health ministry, including 123 killed in Israeli strikes since the ceasefire deal was announced on Wednesday, according to emergency services.
COUNTDOWN
In Tel Aviv, a large clock at the so-called Hostage Square by Israel’s defence headquarters was still counting the days, hours, minutes and seconds since the hostages were taken. Protests for their release have been held there regularly since.
Hundreds gathered there on Saturday night, marking the second birthday of the youngest hostage, Kfir Bibas.
Images of his terrified mother Shiri surrounded by Palestinian gunmen and clutching her two young red-haired sons moments before they were dragged off to Gaza began circulating soon after they were seized. Father
Yarden was also abducted
.
“Today I tried to write a birthday message for his second birthday, for the second time, for a child who cannot celebrate, a child who isn’t here, a child who might not even be alive. But no words came, only tears,“ said Ofri Bibas, Kfir’s aunt.
The Gaza ceasefire will come into effect at 0630 GMT on Sunday. The White House expects three female hostages to be released to Israel in the afternoon through the Red Cross.
Thirty-three of the 98 remaining Israeli hostages, including women, children, men over 50 and ill and wounded captives, are to be freed in the first phase of the ceasefire. In return, Israel will release almost 2,000 Palestinians from its jails.
They include 737 male, female and teen-aged prisoners, some of whom are members of militant groups convicted of attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, as well as hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza in detention since the start of the war.
Israel’s Justice Ministry published their details early on Saturday, along with the ceasefire agreement, which said 30 Palestinian prisoners would be released for each female hostage on Sunday.
After Sunday’s hostage release, lead U.S. negotiator Brett McGurk said, the accord calls for four more female hostages to be freed after seven days, followed by the release of three further hostages every seven days thereafter.
With the Gaza accord 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.
One of them was far-right police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who said his party’s ministers will submit resignation letters on Sunday.
MISSILES
The Gaza conflict caused shockwaves across the region, triggering a war with the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and bringing Israel into direct conflict with Iran for the first time.
The Yemeni Houthis, also backed by Iran, have carried out hundreds of attacks on what they say are Israeli-linked cargo ships travelling via the Red Sea and fired missiles at Israel, which has retaliated with airstrikes in Yemen.
At least two missiles were fired from Yemen on Saturday, the Israeli military said, setting off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the southern resort town of Eilat before they were intercepted.
In Tel Aviv, a Palestinian man stabbed and wounded one person, police said, before he was shot by a passerby. His condition was not immediately clear.
