The Israeli cabinet has approved the Gaza ceasefire and hostage agreement

The Israeli government has approved a new Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas, paving the way for it to come into force on Sunday.

The decision was reached after hours of discussion that lasted into the night. Two far-right ministers voted against the deal.

The security cabinet earlier recommended ratifying the deal, saying it “supports the achievement of the war’s objectives,” according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

It came two days after the prime minister’s office and Hamas said they had both finalized the details of the deal, two days after brokers Qatar, the US and Egypt announced.

According to the agreement, after 15 months of conflict, the Israeli guerrillas who remain in Gaza will be exchanged for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, in the first phase, which will last six weeks.

Israeli forces will also withdraw from densely populated areas of Gaza, displaced Palestinians will be allowed to begin returning to their homes, and hundreds of aid trucks will enter the territory every day.

Negotiations for the second phase – which would require the release of the remaining hostages, the withdrawal of all Israeli troops and the “restoration of lasting calm” – will begin on the 16th.

The third and final stage will be the rebuilding of Gaza – something that could take years – and the return of the bodies of the remaining hostages.

Qatar has said that the hostages to be released in the first phase will be “civilian women, female soldiers, children, the elderly and sick and injured civilians”.

Israel says three hostages are expected to be released on the first day of the ceasefire, with additional small groups being released periodically over the next six weeks.

On October 7, 2023, Israel’s military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas – banned as a terrorist organization by Israel, the US and others – in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack that killed around 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. .

Since then, more than 46,870 people have died in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run Health Ministry. Most of the 2.3 million people have also been displaced, there is widespread destruction and severe shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter as a result of the struggle to get aid to those in need.

Israel says 94 of the hostages are still being held by Hamas, of whom 34 are presumed dead. In addition, there are four Israelis kidnapped before the war, two of them dead.

Ahead of the Israeli government’s vote on the deal, Culture Minister Miki Zohar of Netanyahu’s Likud party said: “It is a very tough decision, but we decided to support it because it is very important for us to see all our children, men and women return home.”

“We hope to finish the work in Gaza in the future,” he added.

But far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he was “appalled” by the details of the deal, which would include freeing “terrorists sentenced to life” in exchange for hostages, and called on other ministers to join him in the vote. against that

On Thursday, Ben-Gvir announced that his Jewish Power Party would leave the governing coalition if the deal was accepted. But he said he will not topple the government in parliament and will return “if the war against Hamas resumes in full force”.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, another far-right politician who opposed the deal, has said his Religious Zionist party will quit if the war does not resume after the first phase.

The three-phase structure has also caused division and anxiety among the families of the hostages. They fear that their relatives will be left in Gaza after the completion of the first phase and they ask the government to ensure that the second and third phases are also implemented.

“For 469 days our loved ones have been abandoned in captivity, and now, finally, there is hope,” said Einav Zangauker, whose 25-year-old son Matan was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz.

“This deal must be pursued to the end, to bring everyone home and to end the war. It is in Israel’s interest to end the war, bring everyone back and return to normalcy.”

A government vote was expected on Thursday, but the meeting was delayed after Netanyahu accused Hamas of reneging on parts of the deal – a charge Hamas denied.

In the early hours of Friday, the prime minister’s office announced that Israel’s negotiating team in Doha had finalized the deal.

Hamas also issued a statement saying that “obstacles” over the terms of the deal had been resolved by dawn.

A source close to Hamas told the AFP news agency that the first three hostages to be released will be women.

On Friday, Israel’s Justice Ministry released a list of 95 Palestinian prisoners it said would be part of the first group to be released in exchange for hostages. 69 women, 16 men and 10 minors, according to AFP.

A meeting was also held in Cairo on Friday to discuss mechanisms for implementing the deal, a senior Egyptian official told the BBC.

All necessary arrangements were agreed, including the creation of a joint operations room to ensure compliance, which would include representatives from Egypt, Qatar, the US, Palestine and Israel, the official said.

Egypt’s Al-Qahera News TV also quoted a source as saying they had agreed to facilitate the entry of 600 aid trucks a day during the ceasefire.

That would be a more than 14-fold increase from the daily average of 43 trucks reported by the UN in January. But Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization’s Gaza representative, said “the possibility is very much there” if the Rafah crossing with Egypt and other crossings were to open.

WHO also wants to deliver some prefabricated hospitals to help the devastated health sector. Half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are not functional, while the others are partially functional.

There has been no respite for Palestinians on the ground in Gaza since the ceasefire deal was announced on Wednesday night.

Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defense agency said a total of 117 Palestinians, including 32 women and 30 children, were killed in Israeli attacks.

Tamer Abu Shaaban said his young nephew was killed by missile shrapnel while playing in the yard of a school in Gaza City, where the displaced family was sheltering.

– Is this the truce they are talking about? he told the Reuters news agency at a mortuary near his body. “What has this young girl, this child, done to deserve this?”

Israel’s military said on Thursday evening that it had carried out strikes on 50 “terrorist targets” across Gaza the previous day and had taken measures to mitigate civilian casualties.