Israel and Hamas have agreed a deal for the release of at least 50 civilian hostages in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and a four-day halt to hostilities.
The Israeli prime minister’s office said it had approved an agreement that would include a four-day “pause in fighting” to facilitate the release of the first 50 captives. Up to 50 more could be freed in a second phase, with an additional day’s ceasefire for every additional 10 hostages released.
But there were signs of potential delay in implementing the deal. Israeli national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said on Wednesday evening the release of hostages will start “not before Friday”, according to news agencies.
Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas political leader based in Qatar, had earlier told Al Jazeera that the temporary truce would start at 10am local time on Thursday.
The pause, which will be the most prolonged cessation in the conflict since the Palestinian militant group’s deadly October 7 attack on Israel, is to be accompanied by an influx of humanitarian aid — including fuel — into Gaza. This would allow 200 trucks of aid into the coastal enclave a day, according to people familiar with the deal.
Israel will initially release up to 150 Palestinian women and children from its prisons, and could free up to 150 more in the second phase. The Israeli justice ministry published the names of about 300 prisoners who could be included in the deal.
The Israeli public has 24 hours to appeal against the agreement, and one group, the Almagor Terror Victims Association, said it would do so. In the past, the Israeli supreme court has rejected such appeals.
The hostages being held in the enclave will be released in batches as Israel and Hamas test the durability of the deal. Their release will be staggered over four days.
A person with knowledge of the deal said Hizbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militia group, would abide by the terms of the pause in hostilities “if Israel does”.
A senior US administration official said three Americans — of 10 unaccounted for — were expected to be released in the first phase of the deal, including a girl who turns four on Friday.
Even after the release, Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza will still hold almost 200 other hostages, including Israeli soldiers and women and children.
The complex negotiations — brokered by Qatar and negotiated with spy chiefs from the US and Israel — took weeks to finalise.
US President Joe Biden thanked the leaders of Qatar and Egypt for their “critical leadership and partnership in reaching this deal” and said he appreciated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s support for “an extended pause to ensure this deal can be fully carried out”.
Qatar confirmed “the success of its joint mediation efforts” to reach the agreement and affirmed “its commitment to ongoing diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions” between Israel and Hamas.
Before Israel’s government voted on the deal, Netanyahu said Biden had intervened “to include more hostages and at a lower cost”.
Hamas’s initial demand was for a 10-day pause to hostilities, which was rejected, according to a person familiar with the negotiations. It then asked for five days. Israel insisted on a shorter pause.
The person briefed on the discussions said other points of contention involved the logistics of the exchange, including the sequence in which people would be released; whether Israel could use drones to monitor the process; and the number of Palestinian prisoners freed and where they could go once they were out of jail.
If the swap succeeds, negotiators hope it will be the first of several to secure the release of more Israeli civilians and foreign nationals in exchange for an extension to the pause in hostilities, the person added.
The person expressed hope Hamas would also use the pause to gather civilian hostages not under its control in Gaza. Some are believed to be held by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a smaller militant faction, and criminal gangs.
Hamas has said it intends to hold on to the Israeli soldiers it captured on October 7 in the hope of trading them for high-ranking Palestinians, some of them militants, in Israeli prisons.
Four of the roughly 240 hostages who were held by Hamas in the enclave have already been released, and the deaths of two others have been confirmed. One, a soldier, was rescued.
The Israel Defense Forces unleashed an aerial bombardment of Gaza, which has been controlled by Hamas since 2007, in response to the October 7 attack. A ground invasion by the IDF followed.
More than 1.7mn Palestinians have now been displaced and are living under “catastrophic humanitarian conditions” in Gaza, according to UN officials, crammed into overcrowded shelters and private homes. Hospitals have collapsed, food is scarce and there is little access to fresh water.
News of a brief pause in fighting brought little relief to an exhausted population that has endured intense bombardment for six weeks.
In Rafah, close to Egypt’s border, Samar Mosbah, 37, said the pause was “meaningless” because she will not be allowed to return to her home to check on it or on relatives who remained there.
“My family is still in Gaza because my mother is elderly and she could not travel to the south,” said Mosbah, who was displaced from northern Gaza. “They will remain under bombardment, and we will still be displaced. A truce will change nothing.”
The plight of the hostages exacerbated the trauma of Israelis over the events of October 7 and became a politically sensitive issue for Netanyahu.
Families of the captives have pressed his government to do more to secure their freedom even as Israel has forged ahead with its offensive.
Meanwhile, far-right politicians have vehemently opposed concessions to Hamas. Ultra-nationalist security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and two other ministers from his extreme Jewish Power party voted against the deal.
Hamas killed about 1,200 people in its October 7 attack, according to Israeli officials. Close to 13,000 people have been killed by the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, according to Palestinian officials.
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