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- A spokesman for Hamas’ armed wing refers to “this temporary ceasefire” and calls in a video message for an “escalation of the confrontation with (Israel) on all resistance fronts.”
DOHA/GAZA, Nov 23 (Portal) – Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas will begin a four-day ceasefire on Friday morning and release a first group of 13 Israeli women and children hostages later in the day, mediators in Qatar said.
The agreement – the first in a brutal war that has lasted nearly seven weeks – would come into force at 7 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) and include a comprehensive ceasefire in the north and south of the Gaza Strip, Qatar’s foreign ministry said.
Additional aid would flow to Gaza and the first hostages, including elderly women, would be released at 4 p.m., bringing the total to 50 over the four days, ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said in the Qatari capital Doha.
Palestinians are expected to be released from Israeli prisons, he told reporters. “We all hope that this ceasefire provides an opportunity to begin broader work to achieve a lasting ceasefire.”
Hamas – which had been expected to declare a ceasefire with Israel a day earlier on Thursday only because negotiations were dragging on – confirmed on its Telegram channel that all hostilities by its forces would cease.
Israel has received an initial list of hostages to be freed from the Gaza Strip and is in contact with their families, the Israeli prime minister’s office said in a statement, which did not confirm that a ceasefire had been agreed.
Qatar said an operations center in Doha would monitor the ceasefire and the release of hostages and had direct communication channels with Israel, Hamas’ political office in Doha and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Egypt, also involved in the mediation, is receiving lists of hostages and prisoners expected to be released and is calling on both sides to respect the agreement, Diaa Rashwan, the head of Egypt’s state information service, said in a statement.
“While this is a hopeful moment, our work is not yet done. “We will continue to work to secure the release of all remaining Gaza hostages in the coming weeks,” a US State Department official said in Washington.
Israel launched its devastating invasion of the Gaza Strip after Hamas gunmen crossed the border fence on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages, Israeli figures show.
According to Palestinian health authorities, around 13,000 Gazans have been killed by Israeli bombings since then, around 40% of them children. But they said keeping a current tally has become increasingly difficult as the health service has collapsed under Israeli bombing.
International mediators want to convert the ceasefire agreement into a longer cessation of hostilities, but both sides have said they will resume fighting.
Abu Ubaida, spokesman for Hamas’ armed wing, referred to “this temporary ceasefire” as he called in a video message on Thursday for an “escalation of confrontation with (Israel) on all resistance fronts,” including the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the outbreak of the Violence has increased during the Gaza war.
[1/8]Palestinians gather as others search for victims at the site of an Israeli attack on a house in Rafah, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the southern Gaza Strip November 23. Portal/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa acquires license rights
“We need to know that they are alive”
Ahead of the ceasefire, fighting continued with even greater intensity than normal, with Israeli fighter jets hitting more than 300 targets and troops engaging in heavy fighting around the Jabalia refugee camp north of Gaza City.
An army spokesman said operations would continue until troops received orders to stop. From across the border fence in Israel, clouds of smoke could be seen over the war zone in northern Gaza, accompanied by heavy gunfire and booming explosions.
In Rafah, on the southern edge of the strip, residents combed with their bare hands through the ruins of a house that had been destroyed in a huge crater. A grey-bearded man wept amidst the ruined masonry while another man placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. Neighbor Khaled Hamad told Portal it was the home of a primary school teacher who was killed along with his children.
Israel says Hamas militants use residential and other civilian buildings, including hospitals, as cover. Hamas denies this.
The delay in the start of the ceasefire marked another day of worry for Israeli relatives who say they still do not know the fate of the hostages, and for Palestinian families trapped in the Gaza fighting zone in fear .
“We need to know that if they are well, they are alive. This is the minimum,” said Gilad Korngold, desperate for information about the fate of seven of his family members, including, presumably, his three-year-old granddaughter among the hostages.
Palestinian media reported that at least 15 people were killed in airstrikes on Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza. Portal could not independently verify tolls there.
Israel said its attacks last day hit “military command centers, underground terror tunnels, weapons storage sites, weapons production sites and anti-tank missile launch sites.” A video was released of troops patrolling on foot along rutted streets surrounded by bombed-out ruins.
Israel said on Thursday it had arrested the head of Gaza’s largest hospital, Al Shifa, because he was being questioned about his role in using the hospital as a Hamas command center.
Hamas condemned the arrest of Shifa director Muhammad Abu Salamiya and other doctors who were allegedly trying to evacuate remaining patients and wounded from the facility.
International concern has focused on the fate of hospitals, particularly in the northern half of the Gaza Strip, where all medical facilities are no longer functioning, trapping patients, staff and displaced people.
“For 11 days we lacked water, food and medical supplies, except in two cases where the Israeli occupation army brought sandwiches and water, which fed less than half of the people in the hospital,” said Ahmed El Mokhallalati, a Shifa doctor . “Patients die every day due to the occupation of the hospital by Israeli occupation forces.”
Reporting by Portal offices. Text: Peter Graff and Andrew Heavens. Editors: William Maclean and Mark Heinrich
Our standards: The Thomson Portal Trust Principles.
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