Israel on Saturday approved a ceasefire agreement with the Palestinian militant group Hamas that involves the release of hostages in the Gaza Strip, and Israeli forces bombed the small enclave before the agreement began, .
The deal is expected to halt a 15-month war between Israel and Hamas, killing some 47,000 Palestinians and 1,200 Israelis and destabilizing the Middle East.
In the early hours of Saturday, after meeting for more than six hours, the Israeli cabinet ratified the ceasefire agreement brokered by the United States, which should halt the fighting and allow the release, over several weeks, of dozens of hostages. held by Hamas in exchange for dozens of Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
“The government approved the plan for the return of the hostages. The plan for the release of the hostages will come into force on Sunday,” Netanyahu’s office said in a brief statement.
In Gaza, Israeli warplanes have maintained heavy attacks since the agreement was reached and continued to bomb the territory on Saturday.
Israeli tanks shelled the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, and airstrikes hit the center and south of the Gaza Strip, according to residents. Doctors in Gaza said five people were killed in an airstrike that hit a tent in the Mawasi area, west of the town of Khan Younis.
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At least 123 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli shelling since the ceasefire agreement was announced on Wednesday, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said.
The Israeli military said it carried out strikes on 50 “terrorist targets” in the Gaza Strip on Friday and did not immediately respond to questions about its actions on Saturday.
Sirens sounded in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on Saturday. The military said it shot down a missile fired from Yemen and did not mention any casualties. The Houthi group, which controls much of Yemen, indicated it would launch attacks against Israel if the country “violates” the ceasefire.
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The Gaza war – which began when Hamas carried out the most devastating attack in Israel’s history on October 7, 2023, killing hundreds of people in southern Israel – has triggered a series of other smaller conflicts in the Middle East.
Israel began bombing Gaza immediately and soon came into conflict with Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of Iran-backed Hamas, which eventually invaded southern Lebanon and killed most of Hezbollah’s top leaders.
Yemen’s Houthis, also backed by Iran, have since the start of the Gaza war carried out hundreds of attacks on what they say are Israeli-linked cargo ships traveling through the Red Sea and have fired several missiles into Israeli territory.
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Israel responded by bombing Yemen. Israel has also killed several high-ranking officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s elite military force, many of them in attacks on Syrian territory, including the Iranian embassy complex in Damascus last year.
HOSTAGES WILL BE RELEASED ON SUNDAY
It is unclear whether an end to the fighting in Gaza would help calm broader regional tensions. If successful, some observers say, it could ease hostilities elsewhere in the Middle East.
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The ceasefire will come into force at 3:30 am on Sunday, Brasília time, according to a spokesperson for the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted on X. The White House expects three female hostages to be released to Israel at afternoon through the Red Cross.
Under the plan, the three-stage ceasefire begins with an initial six-week phase when hostages held by Hamas will be exchanged for prisoners and detainees held in Israel.
Thirty-three of the remaining 98 Israeli hostages, including women, children, men over 50 and sick and injured prisoners, are expected to be released at this stage. In return, Israel will release nearly 2,000 Palestinians from its prisons.
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This includes 737 male, female and teenage prisoners, some of whom are members of militant groups convicted of attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, as well as hundreds of Gaza Palestinians detained since the start of the war.
Israel’s Justice Ministry published details early Saturday along with the ceasefire agreement, which said 30 Palestinian prisoners would be released for every female hostage on Sunday.
Following the release of the hostages on Sunday, according to chief US negotiator Brett McGurk, the agreement calls for the release of four more female hostages after seven days, followed by the release of three hostages every seven days thereafter.
With opposition to the deal from some hard-line members of the Israeli cabinet, media reported that 24 ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition government voted in favor of the deal, while eight were opposed.
Opponents said the ceasefire agreement represented a capitulation to Hamas. The Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, threatened to resign if the agreement was approved and asked the other ministers to vote against it.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also threatened to leave the government if it does not return to war to defeat Hamas after the first six-week phase of the ceasefire.
