► The truce in Gaza will come into force on Sunday at 06:30 GMT
The ceasefire between the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip will come into force on Sunday at 8:30 a.m. (06:30 GMT), the spokesperson for the Qatari Foreign Ministry, one of the mediators, said on Saturday. international partners with Egypt and the United States who succeeded in obtaining this agreement after more than a year of laborious negotiations.
“As agreed between the parties involved in the agreement and the mediators, the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will begin at 08:30 Sunday, January 19, local time in Gaza”wrote the spokesperson for the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Majed al-Ansari, on his X account, calling “residents (…) to exercise the greatest caution and wait for instructions from official sources”.
► Return of the first hostages on Sunday
The ceasefire agreement, announced Wednesday by Qatar and the United States, another mediating country, provides in an initial six-week phase for the release of 33 hostages held in the Gaza Strip since the unprecedented attack of Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023.
Hostages will be released on Sunday, the Israeli government announced, without specifying their number. Three reception points have been set up on Israel’s southern border with Gaza, from where the captives, cared for by doctors, will be taken to hospitals, a military official said. According to two sources close to Hamas, the first group of hostages released should be made up of three Israeli women.
Two Franco-Israelis, Ofer Kalderon, 54, and Ohad Yahalomi, 50, are among the 33 hostages released during the first phase, according to Paris. They were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz along with several of their children, released during an initial one-week truce in November 2023.
► 95 Palestinian detainees released on Sunday
In exchange, Israel will release 737 Palestinian prisoners, according to the Israeli Ministry of Justice, which specified that their release would not take place before 4:00 p.m. Sunday (2:00 p.m. GMT). Israeli authorities designated 95 Palestinian detainees for release on Sunday, the majority women and minors, most of whom were arrested after October 7.
-Among the prisoners expected to be released is Zakaria al-Zoubeidi, responsible for anti-Israeli attacks and former local leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the armed wing of President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party.
► Warning sirens in Jerusalem, a projectile fired from Yemen according to the army
Explosions were heard over Jerusalem on Saturday around 10:20 a.m. (08:20 GMT), after warning sirens were triggered in the city and in central Israel, with the Israeli army announcing a projectile launch from Yemen.
The Houthi rebels who occupy vast regions of Yemen at war have launched attacks against Israeli territory since the start of the war in Gaza, claiming to act “in solidarity” with the Palestinians. On Thursday, they warned that they would continue their attacks if Israel did not respect the terms of the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
In response to their attacks, Israel struck Houthi targets, including in the rebel-held Yemeni capital Sanaa.
