Israel’s cabinet has approved an agreement with the Palestinian militant group Hamas for a ceasefire and the release of hostages in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Saturday, a day before the scheduled start of the agreement.
In the early hours of Saturday, after meeting for more than six hours, Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
Under the agreement, which some hardline government ministers oppose, A six-week ceasefire is expected to come into force on Sunday (19)with the first in a series of hostage-to-prisoner swaps that could pave the way for an end to the 15-month war in Gaza.
Media reported that 24 ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition government voted in favor of the deal, while eight opposed it.
On Friday (17), the Israeli security cabinet voted in favor of the ceasefire agreement, the first of two necessary approvals.
The war between Israeli forces and Hamas has leveled much of heavily urbanized Gaza, killed more than 46,000 people and displaced most of the enclave’s pre-war population of 2.3 million several times overaccording to local authorities.
Continues after advertising
If successful, the ceasefire could ease hostilities in the Middle East, where the Gaza war has spread to include Iran and its allies — Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and armed groups in Iraq, as well as the occupied West Bank.
In the Gaza Strip on Friday, Israeli warplanes continued heavy strikes, and the Palestinian civil emergency service said 116 Palestinians, nearly 60 of them women and children, had been killed since the deal was announced on Wednesday.
Under the first six-week phase of the three-step agreement, the , including all women (soldiers and civilians), children and men over 50.
Continues after advertising
Israel will release all Palestinian women and minors under 19 detained in Israeli prisons by the end of the first phase.
