The truce agreement between Israel and Hamas, for which the Israeli government gave the final green light on Saturday, is due to come into force on Sunday at 6:30 a.m. It provides for the release of the first Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian detainees.
The Israeli government on Saturday gave the final green light to the ceasefire agreement with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Council of Ministers approved the plan early Saturday, despite opposition from far-right ministers. The truce must come into force on Sunday at 6:30 a.m. GM, Qatar indicated, paving the way for the entry into force on Sunday of a truce accompanied by the release of the first Israeli hostages 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 Prime Minister of Qatar, Mohammed ben Abdelrahmane Al-Thani.
“As agreed between the parties involved in the agreement and the mediators, the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will begin at 8:30 a.m. Sunday, January 19, local time in Gaza”wrote Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari on his X account on Saturday morning. “We advise residents to take precautions, exercise extreme caution and wait for instructions from official sources”he added.
Hamas has already announced that it has approved the terms of the agreement and is committed to respecting them. But while waiting for the truce to begin, on the eve of Monday’s inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump, the Israeli army continued its airstrikes on the Palestinian territory, killing more than 100 people since Wednesday, according to emergency services.
Release of 33 hostages
In its recommendation in favor of the project, the Israeli security cabinet had judged, “after having examined all political, security and humanitarian aspects of the proposed agreement”which he supported “the achievement of war objectives”.
The agreement provides in a first phase of six weeks for the release of 33 hostages held in the Gaza Strip since October 7. In exchange, Israel will release 737 Palestinian prisoners, the Justice Ministry announced, specifying that their release will not take place before 4:00 p.m. Sunday (2:00 p.m. GMT). The Israeli authorities designated 95 detainees for release on Sunday, the majority women and minors, most of whom were arrested after October 7, and indicated that they had taken measures to “prevent any public demonstration of joy” upon their exit.
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.
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. 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”said Friday in Tel Aviv Daniel Lifshitz, grandson of Oded Lifshitz, 84, kidnapped in Nir Oz.
-“Hope”
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, 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.
A lot “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 in 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.
Trois phases
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 hostage releases, 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 terms 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 to set up 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 “full responsibility” in Gaza, its president, Mahmoud Abbas, said on Friday 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.
