The Israeli government on Saturday morning approved a ceasefire agreement with Hamas that calls for the release of dozens of hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners after hours of deliberations, establishing a reprieve in the devastating 15-year war. months in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli prime minister’s office, which announced the agreement after the full cabinet vote, said the agreement would come into force on Sunday.
Palestinians celebrated the temporary ceasefire with hopes it will finally end the conflict and Israelis eagerly await the return of dozens of captives kidnapped by Hamas.
Daniel Lifshitz, whose grandfather Oded, 84, was among the 250 captives taken during the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, said: “The stomach turns and the heart pours out the ground, but that’s what we expected.
The initial attack killed about 1,200 people, triggering a wave of Israeli bombing that has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, who do not distinguish between fighters and civilians.
Saturday’s vote was the second and final required to approve the ceasefire and hostage release agreement. Hours earlier Friday, the security cabinet voted to approve it, overcoming a major obstacle to enacting a deal that the United States and other diplomats view as the best chance to end the war . Hamas said there were no more obstacles to the agreement.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who plays a largely ceremonial role, welcomed the security cabinet’s vote, while acknowledging the difficulties ahead in implementing the deal. “I have no illusions: the agreement will bring great challenges and painful and distressing moments,” he said in a statement.
Under the terms of the agreement, the two sides would begin a six-week truce, during which Israeli forces would withdraw eastward, away from populated areas. Hamas would release 33 of the hostages still in captivity, most of them women and elderly people.
Mr. Lifshitz’s grandfather is among the hostages expected to be released in the initial phase of the deal, but the family has no information about his well-being or whether he is still alive. “Preparing for a party and a funeral at the same time is impossible,” he said.
Israel would also release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, some of whom were serving long sentences for attacking Israelis. On Friday evening, the Israeli government released a list of 95 Palestinian prisoners it said would be among the first to be released on Sunday, including Khalida Jarrar, a prominent lawmaker from the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The ceasefire agreement was adopted with 24 ministers voting in favor and eight ministers against, according to an Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Most of the ministers who voted against the deal belong to two far-right parties that had denounced it, the official said.
The truce would be the first since November 2023, when 105 hostages were freed during a week-long ceasefire in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
A host of questions overshadowed celebrations among the hostages’ relatives, Gazans desperate for an end to the war and diplomats who have struggled for months to broker a truce. It is unclear what will happen after the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, which is expected to last 42 days, including whether Israel intends to pursue a second phase of the agreement and a ceasefire. -the lasting fire in Gaza, allowing the remaining hostages to return home. .
“I will be the happiest man in the world to see one of the hostages return, but there is also immense concern about the second phase,” said Doron Zexer, a prominent campaigner for the release of an Israeli hostage -American, Edan Alexander.
As the full cabinet met Friday, at the start of the Sabbath, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced an internal rebellion from his far-right partners on whom he depends to maintain his governing coalition.
On Thursday evening, one of those partners, hardline National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, announced he would resign from the coalition if the cabinet approved the ceasefire deal. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also threatened to leave the government if Mr. Netanyahu moves from an initial ceasefire phase to a permanent phase.
Their actions alone will not prevent the progress of the initial phase of the agreement with Gaza. But they would create more uncertainty about Israel’s commitment to a long-term ceasefire, as government hardliners push the Israeli military to resume the war and seek to destroy Hamas.
The plan for postwar Gaza also remains unclear, despite optimistic assertions from outgoing Biden administration officials. US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters Thursday that the ceasefire was “a moment of historic possibility for the region”, creating opportunities for lasting peace, the reconstruction of Gaza, “a credible path to Palestinian statehood” and normalized relations between Israel and the Saudi Arabia.
But while President Biden said Thursday that he had pushed Mr. Netanyahu to address Palestinian concerns, the Israeli prime minister has consistently rejected U.S. calls to work toward a possible Palestinian state.
“He has to find a way to address the legitimate concerns” of the Palestinians, Mr. Biden said Thursday in an interview with MSNBC. He called Mr. Netanyahu a friend, but added: “We haven’t really seen eye to eye lately. »
Even after negotiators announced a ceasefire agreement, deadly Israeli airstrikes continued on Gaza. The Israeli military said Thursday it had struck about 50 targets across the territory over the previous day, while Gaza officials reported dozens of people killed.
“The ceasefire seems meaningless,” Ahmad al-Mashharwi, who was sheltering with more than a dozen relatives in a rented house in Gaza City, said in a telephone interview Friday. “Artillery and airstrikes continue around us, particularly in northern Gaza. »
He said conditions in northern Gaza were dire, with prices soaring and shortages of basic goods.
“We cannot afford to buy food or clean water, and my children are hungry,” Mr. al-Mashharwi said. “We have been stripped of everything: there is no security, no resources, nothing to help us survive.”
The ceasefire is supposed to pave the way for more humanitarian aid to reach Gaza. The World Health Organization said Friday it hoped aid deliveries would accelerate sharply to between 500 and 600 trucks per day, up from 40 to 50 per day in recent months, and enable the first steps toward the restoration of health services after more than a year of war.
“We will see if the political will is there, if the obstacles are removed and if roads open,” Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Palestinian territories, told reporters on Friday.
Hundreds of humanitarian trucks carrying food, tents and other supplies were already lined up in Arish, near the Rafah crossing with Egypt, according to Al Qahera News, an Egyptian state television channel.
Aid workers also hope the ceasefire will allow more medical evacuations. The WHO reported that Israel had approved the evacuation of 5,405 patients since the start of the war. But the pace of evacuations slowed after Israel closed the Rafah crossing in May. Of 1,200 patients the WHO said it had requested permission to evacuate over a one-month period at the end of 2024, Israel agreed to the move of only 29.
It now plans to restart once-regular transfers to hospitals in East Jerusalem and Egypt, as well as access to hospitals abroad.
“This is not a logistical problem,” James Elder, a spokesman for the United Nations children’s agency, told reporters. “It’s a problem of intention.”
Nick Cumming-Bruce contributed to reporting from Geneva.
