Gaza war: Ceasefire in Gaza war begins with delay

In the Gaza Strip, the ceasefire between Israel and the Islamist Hamas began hours late. It will come into force at 10:15 a.m. CET, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced. Hamas submitted the list with the names of three hostages to be released today. Actually, the ceasefire should have started at 7:30 a.m. CET. However, since Hamas had not yet released the names of the hostages, the army initially continued its attacks.

Israel and Hamas agreed on a ceasefire of initially 42 days with the mediation of Qatar, Egypt and the USA. During this time, 33 of the 97 Israeli hostages remaining in the Gaza Strip will be exchanged for 1,904 imprisoned Palestinians. The first phase of the agreement also provides for a rapid improvement in food supplies for Gaza’s more than two million residents, 90 percent of whom, according to the UN, are suffering from hunger. In addition, the Israeli army must withdraw from population centers in the Gaza Strip.

Three hostages are expected to be released today

The three women set to be released all have Israeli citizenship, according to Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majid al-Ansari. One of the women is also a Romanian citizen and another a British citizen.

Among the hostages remaining in Gaza are Israelis who also have German citizenship. In Israel it is assumed that 34 of those abducted are presumed dead. According to the Israeli government, the release of the first three hostages is scheduled for today at 3:00 p.m. CET. According to Israeli information, there are three civilians.

At around the same time, the first 90 or so Palestinian prisoners are to be released in Israel and taken by security forces either to the occupied West Bank or to Gaza. It remained unclear whether the schedule would stick due to the delayed start of the ceasefire.

Israel’s police minister resigns over hostage deal

According to media reports, Israel’s right-wing extremist Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir announced his resignation in protest against the ceasefire agreement with Hamas. This means that his Otzma Jehudit party, which has six of the 120 seats in the Knesset, is also leaving the government coalition. However, the right-wing religious government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not lose its majority in parliament. It still has 62 of the 120 seats in the Knesset.

Israel attacks again in Gaza

While Israel waited for the list with the names of the three hostages, the army continued. The army said artillery and the air force attacked a number of “terrorist targets” in the north and center of the sealed-off coastal strip. According to the Hamas-controlled Civil Defense, 13 people were killed across the coastal strip. The information could not be independently verified. The army initially had no comment.

The war was triggered by the Hamas massacre, in which around 1,200 people were killed in Israel on October 7, 2023 and more than 250 were kidnapped to Gaza. Israel responded with attacks on Hamas that, according to Palestinian figures, killed more than 46,700 people. The figure, which cannot be independently verified, does not distinguish between civilians and fighters. On the eve of the ceasefire, Netanyahu reiterated that if the agreement fails, Israel would resume fighting and achieve all war aims, including the complete destruction of Hamas.