Gaza finally reaches the expected truce after weeks of devastating fighting

The Gaza Strip woke up to a different scene. Without bombing or targeting, with the entry into force of a long-awaited truce between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement, today (Friday), amid hopes that it will be a prelude to ending a war that began a month and a half ago, and doubts have arisen about the ability of the mediators to end it.

Pending the implementation of the terms of the four-day truce, the Qatari mediator announced that it would witness a cessation of fighting and the entry of aid, in addition to the exchange of detainees between Israel and Hamas, according to the Arab World News Agency.

But hours before the start of the truce, at seven in the morning local time in Gaza (five in the morning GMT), Israel launched a campaign of violent air and artillery bombardment on various areas of the Gaza Strip. The extent of the damage and losses caused by these raids was not immediately clear.

It is expected that the truce will give the people of Gaza an opportunity to catch their breath and heal the wounds caused by the continuous Israeli bombing every day for 48 days. They did not have the opportunity to bury their dead, as the hospitals and streets became crowded, so their families were forced to bury them in mass graves.

The truce also gives them a reasonable flow of aid, including fuel, by allowing approximately 200 trucks to enter each day, a rate close to half of what was entering the Strip before October 7.

Witnesses in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip say that as soon as the truce began, citizens began a cautious movement towards their homes that were demolished by Israeli bombing, especially in the east of the governorate.

One of the residents said that he wanted to go and inspect his house, where his father was killed in the Israeli bombing.

Muhammad Abu Tir added to the Arab World News Agency: “I will go to inspect the house of my father, who died in the war… My house is definitely destroyed, I will go to inspect it as well.”

Even the north, which received the lion’s share of destruction since the outbreak of fighting on October 7, its population, estimated at about half a million, defying the Israeli bombing machine suddenly found themselves faced with a calm they had not known for weeks after the Israeli army stopped attacking.

Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets over the southern Gaza Strip warning people against returning north, writing: “The war is not over yet” and “Returning to the north is forbidden and very dangerous.” The Israeli army considers the northern Gaza Strip a combat zone and ordered all civilians to leave it. After 15 minutes Almost as soon as the truce took effect, sirens sounded warning of a missile attack in towns located adjacent to the Gaza Strip, according to the Israeli army, without giving further details.

But before calm, the pace of bombing intensified. The Palestinian Al-Aqsa Channel said that Israeli aircraft fired phosphorus bombs and smoke bombs towards the market square of the Jabalia camp.

The Palestinian Shehab News Agency also reported that a violent Israeli artillery shelling occurred in southern and eastern Gaza shortly before the truce took effect.

Medical sources told the Arab World News Agency that Israeli forces stormed the Indonesian hospital in Gaza on Friday, about two hours before the truce took effect.

The Palestinian News Agency reported that the Israeli army killed a wounded woman, wounded 3, and arrested 3 others.

Watch for the release of detainees

Meanwhile, everyone is awaiting the appearance of the first group of Israeli detainees as part of the exchange process between Israel and Hamas.

The Red Cross will transfer those released by Hamas to the Egyptian authorities at the Rafah border crossing, and the latter will transfer them to the Israeli side via the Kerem Shalom border crossing, which is 13 kilometers away from the Rafah crossing.

Diaa Rashwan, head of the Egyptian State Information Service, expected that the prisoner exchange would take place between three and four o’clock in the afternoon on Friday, local time.

Under the truce agreement, in the first phase, Hamas releases about 50 Israeli women and children, in exchange for Israel releasing about 150 Palestinian prisoners, most of whom are women and minors.