Israel endorses ceasefire agreement with Hamas

The Israeli government on Saturday gave the final green light to the ceasefire agreement with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, paving the way for a truce to come into force on Sunday accompanied by the release of the first hostages Israelis in exchange for Palestinian detainees.

Announced on Wednesday by Qatar and the United States, this agreement aims to ultimately lead to “a definitive end to the war” which has caused tens of thousands of deaths in more than 15 months in the devastated Palestinian territory, according to the first Minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdelrahmane Al-Thani.

Israel will release 737 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for that of the first Israeli hostages, during the first phase of the truce agreement in the Gaza Strip approved on Saturday by the Israeli government, the Ministry of Justice announced.

As part of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, “the government approves the release of 737 prisoners and detainees in the custody of the prison administration,” the ministry said in a press release. Among the prisoners expected to be released is Zakaria Zubeidi, responsible for several attacks against Israeli civilians and former leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of the Fatah party, who escaped from prison Israeli in 2021.

But while waiting for the start of the truce, set for Sunday, on the eve of Monday’s inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump, the Israeli army continued its airstrikes on Palestinian territory, killing more than 100 people. since Wednesday, according to emergency services.

After the green light from the security cabinet on Friday afternoon, the Council of Ministers approved the plan early on Saturday, despite opposition from far-right ministers.

Very exceptionally, the cabinet session continued after the start of Shabbat and the government issued a terse statement after the vote, after 1:00 a.m. (00:00 Swiss time), to announce the adoption of the project and the entry into force of the truce from Sunday, without specifying the time. Hamas has already announced that it has approved the terms of the agreement and is committed to respecting them.

In its recommendation in favor of the project, the Israeli security cabinet had judged, “after examining all political, security and humanitarian aspects of the proposed agreement”, that it supported “the achievement of the war objectives”.

The agreement provides in a first phase of six weeks the release of 33 hostages held in the Gaza Strip since October 7, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. The definitive end of hostilities will be negotiated during this first phase.

The first releases of hostages should take place on Sunday, the government announced.

According to an Israeli military official, three reception points have been set up on the border with Gaza, from where the hostages, cared for by doctors, will be taken to hospitals. According to two sources close to Hamas, the first group should be made up of three Israeli women.

The Israeli authorities on Friday designated 95 detainees for release on Sunday, the majority women and minors, most of them arrested after October 7, and indicated that they had taken measures to “prevent any public demonstration of joy” upon their release.

Two Franco-Israelis, Ofer Kalderon, 54, and Ohad Yahalomi, 50, are among the list of the first 33 hostages available for release, according to Paris. Both were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz with several of their children, released during the first truce in November 2023.

“This is the moment we have been waiting for […]I really hope we see my grandfather come home, standing, alive,” Daniel Lifshitz, grandson of Oded Lifshitz, 84, kidnapped in Nir Oz, said Friday in Tel Aviv.

Even before the start of the truce, displaced Palestinians driven out by bombs and fighting are preparing to return home. “I will […] remove the rubble from the house and place my tent on the rubble,” anticipates Oum Khalil Bakr, a refugee in Nousseirat.

“We know that it will be cold and that we will not have blankets to sleep in, but what matters is to return to our land,” adds this mother of ten children.

Many “will find their entire neighborhood destroyed” without any essential services, warns Mohamed Khatib, of the Medical Aid for Palestine organization in Gaza.

“The suffering will continue […] but at least there is hope,” he adds, while humanitarian organizations anticipate considerable obstacles to helping the population.

The war, which caused a level of destruction in Gaza “unprecedented in recent history”, according to the UN, was triggered on October 7, 2023 by the bloody attack by Hamas on Israeli soil.

It led to the death of 1,210 people on the Israeli side, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. Of 251 people kidnapped, 94 are still hostages in Gaza, of whom 34 are dead according to the army.

At least 46,876 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the Israeli military campaign of retaliation in Gaza, according to data from the Hamas government’s Health Ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.

The agreement, the result of laborious negotiations, was unblocked in the run-up to Donald Trump’s return to the White House on Monday.

In addition to the first releases of hostages, the first phase includes, according to US President Joe Biden, “a total ceasefire”, an Israeli withdrawal from densely populated areas and an increase in humanitarian aid.

The second phase should allow the release of the last hostages, before the third and final stage devoted to the reconstruction of Gaza and the restitution of the bodies of hostages who died in captivity.

During the first phase, the modalities of the second will be negotiated, namely “a definitive end to the war”, according to the Prime Minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdelrahmane Al-Thani.

On Friday, Egyptian, Qatari, American and Israeli mediators agreed on “all necessary arrangements to implement” the ceasefire agreement, according to Egyptian state media: they agreed to put in place a joint operations room in Cairo to “ensure effective coordination” and compliance with the conditions of the truce, and to facilitate the entry of 600 aid trucks per day, an informed Egyptian source told Al-Qahera News.

Already undermined by an Israeli blockade imposed since 2007, poverty and unemployment, the besieged Gaza Strip has been ravaged by war and almost all of its 2.4 million inhabitants displaced. The ceasefire leaves in doubt the political future of Gaza, where Hamas took power in 2007.

The Palestinian Authority, rival of the Islamist movement, is ready to “fully assume its responsibilities” in Gaza, declared Friday its president, Mahmoud Abbas in his first statement after the announcement of the agreement.

Considerably weakened, Hamas is however still far from being wiped out, contrary to the objective set by Benjamin Netanyahu, according to experts.