Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal due to begin

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A truce between Israel and Hamas was due to begin on Sunday morning, halting 15 months of brutal war in Gaza and paving the way for the release of the hostages still being held by the Palestinian militant group in the shattered enclave.

The six-week truce — the first stage of a multiphase agreement thrashed out by US-led mediators last week after months of failed attempts to reach a deal — was due to take effect at 08.30 local time (06.30 GMT).

If the truce holds, Hamas will later on Sunday free three of the 98 hostages it still holds in Gaza. In exchange, Israel will release 90 Palestinian prisoners. 

But in an indication of the fragility of the arrangements, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said barely an hour before the deal was due to come into force that it would not begin unless Hamas provided Israel with the names of the hostages due to be released on Sunday.

Hamas said in a statement minutes later that it was committed to the ceasefire, and that the delay in delivering the names was due to “technical reasons in the field”.

The multiphase deal offers the hope of a halt — and potentially an end — to the bloodiest war in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has left Gaza in ruins, consumed Israeli society, and brought the Middle East to the brink of a full-blown war.

The fighting was triggered by Hamas’s shock October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, during which militants killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, and took a further 250 hostage in the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.

Israel responded with a devastating assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 46,000 people, according to Palestinian officials, as well as displacing most of the coastal enclave’s 2.3mn people and fuelling a humanitarian catastrophe.

After more than half a year of failed attempts to broker a ceasefire, mediators announced last week that Israel and Hamas had agreed to a three-phase deal, which was first set out by US President Joe Biden in May last year.

The first phase involves a six week truce, during which Hamas will release a total of 33 hostages — including children, women, the sick and elderly — in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinian prisoners.

During the first phase of the deal, displaced Palestinians will be allowed to return to their homes, including in northern Gaza. There will also be a partial withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and a massive influx of humanitarian aid into the enclave.

If the deal is implemented as planned, by day 16 of the first phase, Israel and Hamas will start negotiating details of the second phase of the deal, during which the remaining living hostages will be freed in exchange for hundreds more Palestinian prisoners, the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and a permanent end to the war.

The final phase will involve the return of the remaining bodies of hostages who have died, as well as the beginning of the reconstruction of Gaza, under the supervision of Egypt, Qatar and the UN.

However, questions remain over whether the deal will be implemented in full, with Netanyahu under intense pressure from far-right members of his coalition to resume the war at the end of the first stage of the deal.

On Saturday evening, far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said his Jewish Power party would leave the government in protest against the deal, reducing Netanyahu’s majority in Israel’s 120-seat parliament to just two seats.

Ben-Gvir’s ultranationalist ally, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, has also threatened to pull his Religious Zionism party out of the government if the war does not resume after the first stage of the deal. If he did so, it would deprive Netanyahu of his parliamentary majority.