A ceasefire between Hamas and Israel will take effect at 8:30 a.m. local time (0630 GMT) on Sunday, mediator Qatar announced on Saturday, as families of hostages in Gaza mourned news of their loved ones. Prepared for, the Palestinians began preparing for the release of prisoners and humanitarian aid. Groups rushed in to set up a wave of aid.
Approval of the deal overnight by Israel's cabinet, in an extraordinary meeting on the Jewish Sabbath, set off a wave of activity and a fresh wave of emotion as relatives wondered whether the hostages would be returned dead or alive. will be done The names of the first freed hostages were expected to be released later on Saturday.
The pause in the 15-month war is a step towards ending the deadliest, most destructive fighting between Israel and the Hamas militant group – and comes more than a year after a second cease-fire. .
The first phase of the ceasefire will last 42 days, and talks on a more difficult second phase are meant to begin just two weeks later. After those six weeks, Israel's security cabinet will decide how to proceed.
Israeli airstrikes continued on Saturday and Gaza's health ministry said 23 bodies had been brought to hospitals in the past 24 hours.
“What is this truce that kills us hours before it starts?” asked Abdullah al-Akkad, the brother of the woman killed in the airstrike in the southern city of Khan Yunis. A couple and their two children, ages 2 and 7, were killed, health officials said.
And sirens sounded in central and southern Israel, the military said, intercepting missiles fired from Yemen. Iran-backed Houthi rebels have stepped up attacks in Gaza in recent weeks in solidarity with Palestinians.
Get daily national news.
Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.
In a post on X, Qatar's foreign minister advised Palestinians and others to exercise caution and wait for instructions from authorities when the ceasefire comes into effect.
“The first thing I will do is go and see my house,” said Mohammad Mahdi, a father of two displaced from Gaza City's Zaytoun neighborhood. He also looks forward to meeting his family in southern Gaza, but is “still worried that one of us might be martyred before we meet.”
In the first phase of the ceasefire, 33 hostages in Gaza will be released in six weeks in exchange for 737 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Israel's Ministry of Justice has published a list of the detainees, all of whom are minors or women.
According to the ceasefire plan approved by Israel's cabinet, the exchange will begin at 4 pm (1400 GMT) on Sunday. According to the plan, three surviving female hostages will be returned on the first day, four on the seventh day and the remaining 26 over the next five weeks. During each exchange, Palestinian prisoners will be released by Israel after the hostages arrive safely.
Also to be released are 1,167 Gaza residents who were not involved in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led offensive that sparked the war. During this phase, all women and children under the age of 19 will be freed from Israeli-held Gaza.
All Palestinian prisoners convicted of deadly attacks will be deported to Gaza or abroad – some for three years, some permanently – and barred from returning to Israel or the West Bank.
The remaining hostages in Gaza, including male soldiers, will be released in a second phase negotiated in the first phase. Hamas has said it will not release the remaining prisoners without a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal.
Also during the first phase of the ceasefire, Israeli troops are to withdraw to a roughly one kilometer (0.6 mi) wide buffer zone inside Gaza along the borders with Israel.
This would allow many displaced Palestinians to return to their homes, including Gaza City and the largely isolated and devastated northern Gaza. With much of Gaza's population sheltering in large-scale makeshift tents, Palestinians are eager to return to their homes, even though many are destroyed or heavily damaged.
Gaza should also see an increase in food, medical supplies and other humanitarian aid. Trucks were lined up on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing in Gaza on Friday.
Egypt's Ministry of Health said on Saturday, two Egyptian government ministers arrived in the northern Sinai Peninsula to oversee preparations to deliver aid through the Rafah crossing as well as the Karim Shalom crossing and to evacuate injured patients. Ministry of Health said.
The cease-fire plan approved by Israel's cabinet states that all trucks entering Gaza will be subject to Israeli inspections.
An October 7 attack led by Hamas killed around 1,200 people and captured around 250. About 100 hostages remain in Gaza.
Israel responded with an offensive that killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who did not distinguish between civilians and militants but said more than half of the dead were women and children.
© 2025 Canadian Press