Key Points
- Benjamin 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.
Israel’s government approved a deal on Wednesday to free 50 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners and a truce, according to an official statement sent to AFP by the prime minister’s office.
“The government approved the broad outlines of the first stage of an agreement under which at least 50 kidnapped people — women and children — will be released over four days during which there will be a lull in the fighting,” the statement said.
Earlier on Tuesday, 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.”
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
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.
