Israel And Hamas Agree Truce, Release Of 50 Hostages

Israel and Hamas announced a deal on Wednesday allowing at least 50 hostages and scores of Palestinian prisoners to be freed, while offering besieged Gaza residents a four-day truce after weeks of all-out war.

In the first major diplomatic breakthrough in the war, Palestinian militants will release during a four-day truce 50 women and children kidnapped during their October 7 raids.

After weeks of Qatar-brokered negotiations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet approved the truce accord Wednesday after a near-all-night meeting, in which he told ministers this was a “difficult decision but it’s a right decision”.

The cabinet’s sign-off was one of the last stumbling blocks after what one US official described as five “extremely excruciating” weeks of talks.

Hamas released a statement welcoming the “humanitarian truce” and said it would also see 150 Palestinians released from Israeli jails.

“The resistance is committed to the truce as long as the occupation honours it,” a Hamas official told AFP.

Hamas gunmen carried out on October 7 a cross-border attack, the worst in Israel’s history, that left around 1,200 people dead, most of them civilians, according to the Israeli government.

Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups also took an estimated 240 Israelis and foreigners hostage, among them elderly people and young children.

Israel declared war on Hamas, vowing to bring the hostages home and to destroy the militant group.

It launched a major bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza, which, according to the Hamas government in the territory, has killed 14,100 people, thousands of them children.

Israel said that to facilitate the hostage release it would initiate a four-day “pause” in its six-week-old air, land and sea assault of Gaza, while it stressed that the agreement did not spell the end of the war.

For every 10 additional hostages released, there would be an extra day’s “pause”, the Israeli government said.

Sources from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another militant group that took part in the October 7 attacks, had earlier told AFP the truce would include a ceasefire on the ground and a pause in Israeli air operations over southern Gaza.

The negotiations have involved the US Central Intelligence Agency, Israel’s overseas spy agency Mossad, Egyptian intelligence, and leaders in Doha, Cairo, Washington, Gaza and Israel.

A senior US official said three Americans, including three-year-old Abigail Mor Idan, were among the 50 earmarked for staggered release from Thursday.

US President Joe Biden said he was “extraordinarily gratified that some of these brave souls… will be reunited with their families once this deal is fully implemented”.

Qatar’s foreign ministry confirmed the deal, saying that “a number of Palestinian women and children detained in Israeli prisons” would be released in exchange for the hostages.

“The starting time of the pause will be announced within the next 24 hours and last for four days, subject to extension,” the ministry said.

The deal was greeted by countries including Britain, China, Egypt, France and Germany, whose Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock hailed the “breakthrough” and said “the humanitarian pause must be used to bring vital aid to people in Gaza”.