New Delhi: The Israeli government and Hamas announced a temporary ceasefire deal Wednesday. The deal will see a pause for at least four days of fighting in exchange for the release of 50 hostages captured by Hamas during its attacks on 7 October. Hamas announced that 150 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails will also be released as a part of the deal.
Officials from Qatar, US President Joe Biden, Israeli officials and Hamas have been saying a deal is imminent for days.
The Israeli cabinet that met for over six hours, and ended the meeting in the early hours of Wednesday, backed the deal, according to Israeli media reports. Only three from the 38-member cabinet reportedly voted against the deal — Itamar Ben-Gvir the far-right minister of national security and two other ministers from his Otzma Yehudit party.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office highlighted that the deal would require Hamas to release 50 hostages over a four-day pause in fighting and for every additional 10 hostages released, the pause will be extended by 10 days, as per media reports. The deal is the first such accord since Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel on 7 October and the pause the longest since hostilities broke out.
“Israel’s government is committed to returning all hostages home. Tonight, it approved the proposed deal as a first stage to achieving this goal,” the government said. No mention was made by Israel regarding the release of Palestinians.
Hamas, however, announced that it will adhere to the deal and release 50 women and children held in its territory in exchange for Tel Aviv releasing 150 Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails, said media reports.
The temporary truce will also allow humanitarian aid trucks to enter the besieged Gaza strip and Tel Aviv has committed to not attack or arrest anyone in all parts of the strip during the four-day pause.
Israel’s retaliatory strikes have seen large parts of Gaza flattened. The Hamas-led Gaza health authorities have announced that 13,300 civilians have been killed in the strip, while a vast majority of the 2.3 million people have been left homeless as per media reports.
Hamas killed at least 1,200 people in its attack and captured over 200 people.
Hostage release from Thursday
The hostages will not be released until Thursday since the deal requires judicial review by judges on potential legal challenges to the prisoner release, said a media report in the New York Times.
Qatar has been mediating the deal for the release of hostages in return for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza. The proposal for the deal was delivered during the early hours of Tuesday as reported by Reuters.
“The State of Qatar is awaiting the result of the Israeli government’s vote on the proposal,” a Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson said at the time to Reuters.
Ahead of the announcement of the deal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu highlighted the intervention made by Biden to improve the deal by ensuring fewer concessions and the release of more hostages as per media reports.
However, Netanyahu made clear that the broader mission for Tel Aviv has not changed.
“We are at war and we will continue the war until we achieve all our goals. To destroy Hamas, return all our hostages and ensure that no entity in Gaza can threaten Israel,” he said in a recorded message at the start of the government meeting as per media reports.
Following the announcement of the pause, Biden welcomed the deal, adding that this should also help bring home additional American hostages.
“Today’s deal should bring home additional American hostages, and I will not stop until they are all released,” he said in a statement.
Hamas has released only four hostages till date — US citizens Judith Raanan and her daughter Natalie Raanan and Israeli women Nurit Cooper and Yocheved Lifshitz. Al Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), another group that participated in the 7 October attacks, announced Tuesday that a hostage it held had died.
“We previously expressed our willingness to release her for humanitarian reasons, but the enemy was stalling and this led to her death,” Al Quds Brigades said on its Telegram channel, as reported by Reuters.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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