By Maayan Lubell and Nidal al-Mughrabi
JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the ceasefire in Gaza, due to begin at 0630 GMT on Sunday, will not begin until the Palestinian militant group Hamas provides a list of hostages to be released.
Netanyahu’s announcement comes an hour before the ceasefire deadline. The hostages are expected to be freed hours after the ceasefire began, paving the way for a possible end to a 15-month war that has upended the Middle East.
“The Prime Minister has instructed the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) that the ceasefire, which is supposed to come into effect at 8:30 a.m., will not begin until Israel has a list of released abductees. Hamas is committed to providing,” his office said. said Sunday.
Hamas affirmed on Sunday its commitment to the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, saying the delay in disclosing the names of the hostages who will be released in the first phase was due to “technical reasons on the ground.”
Israeli forces have begun withdrawing from the Rafah areas of Gaza towards the Philadelphia Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border, pro-Hamas media reported on Sunday.
The Israeli military warned Gazans not to approach its troops or move into Palestinian territory before the ceasefire deadline, adding that when movements were permitted, “a declaration and instructions would be issued on safe transit methods.”
The ceasefire agreement follows months of on-and-off negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the United States, and comes just ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
The three-stage ceasefire will come into effect on Sunday at 06:30 GMT.
Its first stage will last six weeks, during which 33 of the 98 remaining hostages – women, children, men over 50, sick and wounded – will be released in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
Among them are 737 prisoners, men, women and teenagers, some of whom are members of militant groups convicted of attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, as well as hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza detained since the start of the war.
Three female hostages are expected to be released on Sunday afternoon through the Red Cross, in exchange for 30 prisoners each.
After the hostages were released on Sunday, lead U.S. negotiator Brett McGurk said, the deal calls for the release of four additional hostages after seven days, followed by the release of three more hostages every seven days thereafter.
In the first phase, the Israeli army will withdraw from some of its positions in Gaza and displaced Palestinians from areas of northern Gaza will be allowed to return.
US President Joe Biden’s team worked closely with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to advance the deal.
In the run-up to his inauguration, Trump reiterated his demand that a deal be reached quickly, repeatedly warning that there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages were not released.
POST-WAR GAZA?
But what happens next in Gaza remains uncertain in the absence of a comprehensive agreement on the post-war future of the enclave, whose reconstruction will require billions of dollars and years of work.
And even though the stated goal of the ceasefire is to end the war completely, it could easily collapse.
Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for nearly two decades, has survived despite losing its top leaders and thousands of fighters.
Israel has vowed it will not allow Hamas to return to power and has cleared large swathes of land inside Gaza, in a move widely seen as a move toward creating a buffer zone that will allow its troops to act freely against threats in the enclave.
In Israel, the return of the hostages could ease some of the public anger against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government following the Oct. 7 security failure that led to the deadliest day in Israel’s history. country.
But hardliners in his government have already threatened to resign if the war against Hamas does not resume, leaving him caught between Washington’s desire to see the war end and his far-right political allies at home. .
And if the war resumes, dozens of hostages could remain in Gaza.
SHOCK WAVES IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Outside of Gaza, the war sent shockwaves across the region, sparking a war with Lebanon’s Tehran-backed Hezbollah movement and putting Israel in direct conflict with its archenemy Iran for the first time.
More than a year later, the Middle East has been transformed. Iran, which has spent billions building a network of militant groups around Israel, saw its “Axis of Resistance” destroyed and was unable to inflict more than minimal damage on Israel during of two major missile attacks.
Hezbollah, whose enormous missile arsenal was once considered the greatest threat to Israel, has been humiliated, with its top leaders killed and most of its missiles and military infrastructure destroyed.
Subsequently, the decades-long Assad regime in Syria was toppled, eliminating another major Iranian ally and leaving the Israeli military without an effective challenge in the region.
But diplomatically, Israel has faced outrage and isolation over the death and devastation in Gaza.
Netanyahu faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court over allegations of war crimes and separate charges of genocide before the International Court of Justice.
Israel reacted furiously to both cases, rejecting the accusations as politically motivated and accusing South Africa, which brought the initial case to the ICJ, as well as the countries that joined it, of anti-Semitism.
The war was sparked by the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli counts. Since then, more than 400 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat in Gaza.
Israel’s 15-month campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza Health Ministry figures, which do not distinguish between fighters and civilians, and left the narrow coastal enclave a wasteland of rubble .
Health officials say most of the dead are civilians. Israel says more than a third are fighters.
