The ceasefire in
Gaza between Israel and Hamas will take effect at 08:30am (06:30 GMT) on
Sunday, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson announced in a post on X.
“Based on the
agreement between the parties… the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will begin at
8:30am on Sunday. We advise our brothers to take precautions, exercise the
utmost caution, and await instructions from official sources,” spokesperson
Majed al-Ansari said in a tweet on Saturday.
Earlier on
Saturday, the Israeli government ratified the agreement after meeting for more
than six hours, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a
brief statement.
The deal was
approved after more than 460 days of war in which Israeli forces have killed
more than 46,788 Palestinians and wounded 110,453. It would see the release of
33 captives held in Gaza over the next six weeks, in exchange for hundreds of
Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
The remainder,
including male soldiers, are to be released in a second phase that will be
negotiated during the first.
Hamas has said
it will not release the remaining captives without a lasting ceasefire and a
full Israeli withdrawal.
“All eyes are
now on Gaza to see what the Israeli military is going to do in these final
hours, because historically, before any sort of ceasefire deal, the Israeli
military pounds the Gaza Strip with all of its might,” said Al Jazeera’s Hamdah
Salhut, reporting from Jordan.
“There’s going
to be a lot of fear and anxiety.”
Leader of the
Lebanese group Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, congratulated the Palestinians for
reaching the deal, saying it proved the “persistence of resistance” against
Israel.
“This deal,
which was unchanged from what was proposed in May 2024, proves the persistence
of resistance groups, which took what they wanted while Israel was not able to
take what it sought,” he said.
In November,
Hezbollah and Israel reached a ceasefire deal in a conflict parallel to
Israel’s war on Gaza.
Israeli attacks
continue across Gaza
In Gaza,
meanwhile, Israeli forces have kept up heavy attacks.
Medics in Gaza
said an Israeli air strike early on Saturday killed five people in the
al-Mawasi “humanitarian zone” area, west of Khan Younis in the enclave’s south.
The Palestinian
Wafa news agency reported that a man from the Qudra family was killed along
with his wife and their three children in the attack.
An Israeli drone
strike also killed three Palestinian civilians in the Tuffah neighbourhood,
east of Gaza City late on Friday, according to Wafa.
This brought to
at least 119 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli bombardment since the
ceasefire accord was announced on Wednesday.
Despite the
attacks, many Palestinians who were displaced from their homes are looking
forward to the ceasefire.
Mahmoud Sheikh
Abed, who was displaced from Rafah, said he is hoping that there would not be
any violations.
“We hope by the
name of God that today is the last day of war. People are tired. We are tired
from displacement, illnesses, from starving, from fatigue.”
Tareq Zumlot,
another Palestinian refugee, said he cannot wait to return to his home in
Jabalia.
“We will return
to our home and check on our family and friends. We hope we will have silence
and safety.”
The
Palestinian Authority (PA) has reached an agreement with the Jenin Brigade that
will end its six-week siege of the northern West Bank city and adjacent refugee
camp, Israeli media reported on 17 January.
A
PA official told The Times of Israel that the truce was reached Friday evening,
a day after negotiations resumed following the cessation of Israeli airstrikes
earlier this week.
Separate
Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday and Wednesday killed 12 people, including several
civilians.
The
PA has its own security forces, which exert control over some areas of the
occupied West Bank on behalf of the Israeli army.
The
Jenin Brigade is made up of local fighters from various Palestinian resistance
groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
The
Times of Israel writes that the PA security forces have been targeting
the Jenin Brigade "in a bid to show incoming US President Donald Trump
that Ramallah can maintain order in the West Bank, amid its push to take the
reigns of Gaza from Hamas after the war there."
The
truce deal requires specific members of the Jenin Brigade to hand over their
weapons and allows the PA to operate freely in the refugee camp, the PA
official claimed.
In
contrast, local sources said the agreement included that the PA would cease
"to pursue the resistance fighters and not touching their weapons,
releasing the detainees, allowing the police forces to work in the camp, and
rebuilding the homes that were burned and destroyed by the authority's forces
during the siege that lasted 44 days."
PA
vehicles entered the Jenin refugee camp on Friday evening with bomb-squad units
to detonate explosives that the Jenin Brigade placed throughout the area to
defend the camp from Israeli and PA incursions.
Palestinian
media reported that as PA vehicles entered the camp, dozens of people gathered
to chant slogans in favor of the resistance fighters.
Arabic
media has reported 15 Palestinians killed in the PA operation in Jenin,
including six members of the PA security forces, eight civilians, and one
resistance fighter.
Among
those killed was a journalist killed by a PA sniper in an area where no
fighting was taking place.
The
Israeli army has said that it was bolstering the PA forces to help them in the
fight against the Jenin Brigade.
The
PA operation began on 5 December but escalated ten days later with an operation
that included the extra-judicial killing of a teenager, Rubhi Shalabi, and the
deaths of two others, including Yazid Ja'ayseh, a prominent leader in the Jenin
Brigade, the local branch of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad's (PIJ) Quds
Brigades.
At
the time, PA Security Forces spokesman Brigadier General Anwar Rajab said the
operation, launched in close coordination with the Israeli army, aims to
"preserve security and civil peace, establishing the rule of law, and
ending strife and chaos."
In
contrast, the PIJ said in a statement, "The targeting of resistance groups
by the authorities in Jenin aligns entirely with the aggression and criminality
of the [Israeli] occupation."
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