Key Points
- Netanyahu has vowed the war would continue until Israel achieved all its goals
- A Hamas official told al-Jazeera TV that negotiations were centred on how long the truce would last.
- Both sides would free women and children and details would be announced by Qatar, a Hamas official said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked his government to back a deal to clear the way for the release of some of the hostages that Palestinian Hamas militants took to the Gaza Strip during the assault on Israel.
In a recorded message at the start of a government meeting on Tuesday, Netanyahu vowed the war would continue until Israel achieved all its goals. A US official had said the deal will include a four- or five-day ceasefire, the first pause in six weeks of an Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
Speaking after presenting the still-undisclosed details of the deal to his war cabinet and the wider national security cabinet, Netanyahu told his government it was a difficult decision but the right decision and would enable Israel to go on fighting Hamas.
He said the intervention of US President Joe Biden had helped to improve the deal so that it included more hostages for fewer concessions.
In an earlier briefing, chief military spokesman Daniel Hagari said: “The military will know how to maintain its military achievements in Gaza while preparing for the next stages of the war.”
A US official briefed on the discussions facilitated by Qatar said the deal would include 50 hostages, mostly women and children, in exchange for 150 Palestinian prisoners and a pause in the fighting of four or five days.
Relatives of the Israeli hostages and supporters had marched by the thousands along the highway from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to pressure the government to secure the captives’ release.
Israel has bombarded Gaza since Hamas’ 7 October attack in which more than 1,200 people were killed, according to the Israeli government, and over 200 hostages taken.
More than 13,300 people have been killed in Gaza since 7 October, according to the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza.
Zvika Itzhaki, a relative of Israeli hostage Omer Wenkert, 22, said although the family was happy for the release of women and children, he hoped for the release also of those who are chronically sick.
“He has colitis, a severe intestinal disease. He has to take his daily pill. We don’t know what medical state he’s in,” Itzhaki said.
Hamas has to date released only four out of more than 200 captives. Source: AAP / Andy Rain/EPA
Qadura Fares, head of the Commission for Prisoners’ Affairs in the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, told Reuters on Tuesday that he had not seen the list of Palestinian prisoners included in the pending deal.
He said among more than 7800 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel are some 85 women and 350 minors. Most were detained without charges or for incidents such as hurling rocks at Israeli soldiers, not for launching militant attacks, he said.
“Talk of an exchange deal is what has brought attention to the issue of the arbitrary detention of Palestinian children who are being tried in military courts,” he said.
“The world must know that Israel detains children and systematically targets them, and that their release from prison will surely be a comfort for their families.”
Hamas has to date released only four captives: US citizens Judith Raanan, 59, and her daughter, Natalie Raanan, 17, on 20 October, citing “humanitarian reasons,” and Israeli women Nurit Cooper, 79, and Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, on 23 October.
Hospitals at risk
The Palestinian news agency WAFA said on Tuesday at least 20 Palestinians were killed in Israeli bombing of the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza at midnight.
There was no immediate comment from Israel.
The already crowded Nuseirat district, which grew out of a camp for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Israeli-Arab war, is just south of the wetlands that bisect the strip and has been the arrival point for huge numbers escaping the fighting further north.
Bombing in southern areas leaves Gazans fearing they have no place safe to go.
Twenty-eight prematurely born babies evacuated from Gaza’s biggest hospital, al-Shifa, were taken into Egypt for urgent treatment on Monday. Source: Getty / AFP
Neighbouring Egypt has allowed the relocation of some wounded and foreign passport holders but says it will not accept a mass exodus.
“Continued bombing targeting displaced people in the South has a clear objective, and that is to force Gaza’s residents to leave the Strip,” Egypt’s foreign ministry spokesman said on X.
“Egypt has clearly declared its utter rejection of any enforced displacement attempt of Palestinians.”
, which has gained power in the Gaza Strip since winning legislative elections there in 2006. Its stated aim is to establish a Palestinian state, while refusing to recognise Israel’s right to exist.
Hamas, in its entirety, is designated as a terrorist organisation by countries including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the US. New Zealand and Paraguay list only its military wing as a terrorist group. In 2018, the United Nations General Assembly voted against a resolution condemning Hamas in its entirety as a terrorist organisation.
