The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas, confirmed in a press release the Qatari Foreign Ministry’s announcement of a ceasefire with Israel starting at 7am on Friday.
“It will last four days” and “includes a complete suspension of military activities”, they emphasize. During the truce, “50 Zionist captives (as it calls the hostages), women and children under the age of 19, will be released”, it is stated in the relevant information, where it is recalled that for each hostage “three Palestinian prisoners will be released” », (also) women and children.
The first group of hostages to be released consists of 13 people, according to a statement issued on Thursday afternoon by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Qatar.
As it became known from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, the list of the names of the hostages to be released by Hamas has already been delivered. A spokesman for the ministry underlined that the release of Palestinian prisoners is expected from the Israeli side. Trucks with humanitarian aid will enter the Palestinian enclave after the agreed ceasefire begins, he added.
We received a ‘first list of names’ says Israel
At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced that it has a “first list of names” of hostages and is in contact with their families, as a ceasefire with Hamas and the first wave of releases begin tomorrow.
“Israel confirms it has received a first list of names. Those in charge are verifying the details of the list and are in contact with all the families,” the Prime Minister’s office said in a statement. It is not clear if he is talking about all the hostages, all the persons who will be released or the first hostages who will be released tomorrow.
Earlier this afternoon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the United Nations of moving too slowly to deal with the escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza, stressing that UN agency workers have not entered a designated “safe zone” for Palestinian refugees.
“I have not yet seen the effort that I would like to see on the part of the United Nations and international organizations,” Netanyahu stressed during his meeting with the prime ministers of Spain and Belgium who are visiting Israel, according to the transcript in the Hebrew for the meeting issued by his office. At the same time, he expressed hope for the release of the hostages held by Hamas, stating that there are many challenges to achieve this.
“We hope to free our hostages, there are many challenges to achieve this,” he stressed. “We hope to release the first group, and after that, we are committed to releasing all of them,” Netanyahu added.
A ceasefire agreement reached by Israel and Hamas to release 50 hostages in exchange for the release of 150 Palestinian prisoners and a four-day cessation of hostilities did not go into effect as expected today, with Israeli officials saying the deal would not be put into effect. effective earlier than tomorrow, Friday.
Source: protothema.gr
