The Israeli security cabinet on Friday gave the green light to the ceasefire agreement with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, paving the way for the start of the truce on Sunday and the release of the first hostages on the same day.
• Also read: First releases of hostages in Gaza expected on Sunday
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Despite the announcement of an agreement by Qatar and the United States, the Israeli army continued its airstrikes on the Palestinian territory, which have left more than a hundred dead since Wednesday, according to emergency services.
After the green light from the security cabinet, a council of ministers must meet during the day to give its final agreement, which does not seem to be in doubt despite the opposition of far-right ministers.
“Having examined all political, security and humanitarian aspects of the proposed agreement and considering that it supports the achievement of war objectives”, the security cabinet “recommended to the government to approve this project”, indicated the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The agreement intended to end more than 15 months of war provides in a first phase of six weeks the release of 33 hostages held in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war on October 7, 2023, in exchange for hundreds of prisoners Palestinians detained by Israel.
The definitive end of the war will be negotiated during this first phase.
The security cabinet met on Friday after Israel obtained guarantees on the release of the hostages, according to Mr. Netanyahu’s office.
The first releases should take place on Sunday, the government announced, while the families of the hostages were informed and preparations were underway to welcome them.
According to two sources close to Hamas, the first group should be made up of three Israeli women.
In exchange, Israel agreed “to release a certain number of important prisoners,” one of these sources said.
These details have yet to be confirmed from an Israeli source.
French President Emmanuel Macron announced that two Franco-Israelis, Ofer Kalderon, 54, and Ohad Yahalomi, 50, were on the list of the first 33 hostages for release.
Both were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz, along with several of their children, who were released during the first truce in November 2023.
“There are mixed feelings, on the one hand joy, mixed with horrible stress before knowing that it’s really going to happen,” confided Ifat Kalderon, Ofer Kalderon’s cousin, on Wednesday.
-“Kiss my land”
Even before the start of the truce, displaced Palestinians driven from their homes by the war were preparing to return to their homes.
“I’m waiting for Sunday morning, when they will announce the ceasefire,” said Nasr al-Gharabli, who fled his home in Gaza City in the north to take shelter in a camp further south. .
“I’m going to go embrace my land, and I already regret having left it. If I had died on my land, it would have been better than being moved here,” he added.
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.
This attack resulted in the deaths 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 held hostage in Gaza, 34 of whom are dead according to the army.
At least 46,788 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the Israeli military campaign of retaliation in the Gaza Strip, according to data from the Hamas government’s Health Ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.
Three-phase agreement
The announcement of the agreement followed an acceleration of negotiations, which had stalled for more than a year, in the run-up to Donald Trump’s return to the White House on Monday. The US president-elect assured Thursday that the agreement would never have been concluded without the pressure exerted by him and his future administration.
The first phase includes “a total ceasefire”, according to US President Joe Biden, the release of 33 hostages, an Israeli withdrawal from densely populated areas and an increase in humanitarian aid.
Israel for its part “will release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners,” Mr. Biden said on Wednesday.
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 phase will be negotiated, namely “a definitive end to the war”, according to the Prime Minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdelrahmane Al-Thani.
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 have been displaced.
The ceasefire leaves in doubt the political future of Gaza, where Hamas seized power in 2007.
Shelled for 15 months by the Israeli army, the Islamist movement appears very diminished, but still far from being wiped out, contrary to the objective set by Benjamin Netanyahu, according to experts.
