A ceasefire between Hamas and Israel will come into force in less than 24 hours, Qatar's foreign ministry announced on Saturday.
In a post on X, Qatari Foreign Minister Majid al-Ansari announced that the ceasefire would begin on Sunday at 8:30 a.m. local time (1:30 a.m. Eastern time). He advised residents to be cautious once the agreement comes into force and wait for guidance from officials.
Early Saturday morning, Israel's cabinet approved a ceasefire agreement in Gaza that would free dozens of hostages and halt the 15-month war with Hamas, bringing the sides one step closer to ending their deadliest and most destructive fighting in history.
Despite news of a ceasefire, sirens sounded across central Israel on Saturday and the army said it had intercepted missiles fired from Yemen. In recent weeks, the Iran-backed Houthis have stepped up their missile attacks.
The group says the attacks are part of their campaign to put pressure on Israel and the West over the war in Gaza.
Israeli attacks on Gaza also continued. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said at least 23 people died the previous day.
On Saturday, a spokesman for Palestinian militants, Abu Hamza, called on the hostages' families to ask the Israeli military to stop attacks in the final hours before the ceasefire took effect, saying “this will be a reason to kill their children.”
Under the first phase of the ceasefire, 33 hostages are to be released over the next six weeks in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians held captive by Israel. The rest, including male soldiers, are to be released in the second phase, which will be negotiated in the first phase. Hamas has said it will not release the remaining captives without a permanent ceasefire and a complete Israeli withdrawal.
According to the ceasefire plan approved by the government and signed by Israel's national security adviser, the exchange will begin on Sunday at 4 p.m. (9:00 a.m. EST). In each exchange, the prisoners will be released by Israel after the hostages arrive safely.
The plan calls for the release of approximately 1,900 Palestinian prisoners in the first phase in exchange for 33 Israeli hostages, dead and alive. Of the prisoners, 1,167 are Gaza residents who were held by Israel but were not involved in the attacks on October 7, 2023. All Gaza women and children under 19 years of age held by Israel will be released at this stage.
All Palestinian prisoners convicted of deadly attacks will be exiled to Gaza or abroad and barred from returning to Israel or the West Bank. Some will be exiled for three years, others permanently, as planned.
But key questions remain about the ceasefire – the second reached during the war – including the names of the 33 hostages to be released and who of them is still alive.
Hamas agreed to release three hostages on the first day of the deal, four on day 7, and the remaining 26 over the next five weeks.
Palestinian prisoners are also to be released. Israel's justice ministry published a list of more than 700 people to be released in the first phase of the deal and said the release would not begin before 4 p.m. local time on Sunday. All people on the list are younger or female.
Also in the first phase, Israeli troops are to withdraw to a buffer zone about a kilometer wide in Gaza, along its border with Israel.
This will enable displaced Palestinians to return to their homes, including Gaza City and northern Gaza. With most of Gaza's population forced into huge, dingy tent camps, Palestinians are desperate to return to their homes, even though many of them have been destroyed or severely damaged by the Israeli campaign.
Front burner20:39What is behind the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas?
Omri Miran was one of the men taken hostage by militants who stormed Kibbutz Nahal Oz during Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023. His brother-in-law, Moshe Lavi, told CBC News on Saturday that Miran would not be among those to be released in first stage of the agreement.
Lavi said all hostages should be released together on humanitarian grounds and because of the hardships they experienced.
“Imagine that after 470 days of captivity you can believe that someone does not need humanitarian aid?” he said.
The agreement should see a surge in humanitarian aid into the largely devastated territory. Trucks carrying aid lined up on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip on Friday. Two Egyptian government ministers arrived in the northern Sinai Peninsula on Saturday to oversee preparations for the delivery of aid and to accept the evacuation of injured patients, the health ministry said.
A new report published in The Lancet suggests that the number of people killed in Gaza during the first nine months of the war between Israel and Hamas may be 40 percent higher than reported by Hamas officials.
Hamas sparked the war with a cross-border attack on Israel that left approximately 1,200 people dead and around 250 others captured. Nearly 100 hostages remain in Gaza.
Israel responded with a devastating offensive that has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials who do not distinguish between civilians and fighters but say more than half of the victims are women and children.