Just minutes before a six-day ceasefire expires, Israel and Hamas reached an agreement to continue the ceasefire in order to release the remaining hostages.
The ceasefire was due to expire on Thursday morning. Negotiations over an extension ended on the rocks, with last-minute disagreements over Hamas’s release of the hostages in return for another day of cessation of fighting.
The extension was announced in a Post on X by the Israeli Defense Forces.
“In view of the efforts of the mediators to continue the process of releasing the abductees and subject to the terms of the agreement, the ceasefire will continue,” they wrote in Hebrew.
The Qatari Foreign Ministry said the ceasefire would be extended under the same conditions as in the past, under which Hamas released 10 Israeli hostages a day in exchange for 30 Palestinian prisoners.
Just minutes before a six-day ceasefire expires, Israel and Hamas reached an agreement to continue the ceasefire in order to release the remaining hostages
International mediators had been working to extend the ceasefire in Gaza, encouraging Hamas terrorists to continue releasing hostages in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners and further relief from Israel’s air and ground offensive.
Last night, the Israeli military said that Hamas had handed over 12 Israeli and four Thai hostages on the sixth day of the temporary ceasefire.
The ceasefire, extended from the first four days, has brought the first reprieve from the bombardment of the Gaza Strip, as much of the coastal area of 2.3 million people is turned into wasteland in response to a deadly rampage by Hamas militants in southern Israel on October 7 became.
Hamas, which released 16 hostages on Wednesday in exchange for 30 Palestinian prisoners, said in a statement that the ceasefire would last for a seventh day.
The militant group had previously said Israel had refused to take in another seven women and children, as well as the bodies of three more hostages, in exchange for extending the ceasefire.
Both sides had said they were ready to resume fighting.
Netanyahu stressed on Wednesday that Israel would resume its campaign to eliminate Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years and orchestrated the deadly attack on Israel that sparked the war.
“Will Israel return to the fighting after this phase of repatriating our abductees has been exhausted?” So my answer is a resounding yes,” he said. “We will definitely not fight until the end again.”
Netanyahu stressed on Wednesday that Israel would resume its campaign to eliminate Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years and orchestrated the deadly attack on Israel that sparked the war
The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas’ military wing are present at the prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas
A helicopter carrying Israeli hostages released by Hamas lands in Petah Tikva
Military members chat with each other as a helicopter carries hostages released as part of a hostage-prisoner swap deal
He spoke ahead of a visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region to press for further extensions of the ceasefire and the release of hostages. Blinken arrived in Israel late Wednesday.
Before the ceasefire, Israel bombed the area for seven weeks, killing more than 15,000 Palestinians in the coastal strip, according to health authorities.
Israel has welcomed the release of dozens of hostages in recent days and said it will maintain the ceasefire if Hamas continues to release prisoners.
However, Israel has vowed to restart the war to end Hamas’s 16-year rule over Gaza, but faces growing international pressure to extend the ceasefire and save southern Gaza from a devastating ground offensive like it destroyed much of the northern Gaza Strip.
Hamas’s ability to negotiate and implement the ceasefire suggests that Israel’s air and ground campaigns have not seriously challenged the group’s control over Gaza, despite killing thousands of Palestinians and forcing three out of four people in the territory from their homes became.
Hostages kidnapped by Hamas gunmen during the October 7 attack on Israel are handed over to the International Red Cross by Hamas militants
A helicopter carrying Israeli hostages released by Hamas lands at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan
Newly released Israeli hostages sit among soldiers as they arrive in a van at the Ofakim military base in southern Israel
Those released now face a long road to overcoming the trauma of their long captivity in Gaza.
The father of Emily Hand, an Irish-Israeli held hostage by Hamas for 50 days, has vowed to do “whatever it takes” to help his nine-year-old daughter recover after revealing how she had spent her ninth birthday fleeing rocket strikes in Gaza.
Four days after his daughter’s emotional release, Mr Hand told The Sun: “She was a happy, loud child, now she’s whispering.” She was terrorized in hell by terrorists, but as her father it’s my job to make sure “That it will get better, and that’s what I’m going to do.”