GAZA STRIP, Palestine
A truce between Israel and Hamas will continue, both sides said Thursday, moments before the deal was due to expire, though details of any official agreement remained unclear.
Minutes before the halt in
fighting was due to expire at 0500GMT, Israel’s military said the “operational
pause” would be extended, without specifying for how long.
“In light of the mediators’
efforts to continue the process of releasing the hostages and subject to the
terms of the framework, the operational pause will continue,” it said.
Hamas meanwhile said there was
an agreement to “extend the truce for a seventh day,” without further details.
Qatar, which has led the truce
negotiations, confirmed the pause had been extended until Friday.
There had been pressure to
extend the pause to allow more hostage releases and additional aid into
devastated Gaza, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arriving in Israel
for talks Wednesday night.
The truce has brought a
temporary halt to fighting that began on October 7 when Hamas militants poured
over the border into Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and
kidnapping about 240, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel’s subsequent air and
ground campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 15,000 people, also mostly civilians,
according to Hamas officials, and reduced large parts of the north of the
territory to rubble.
The truce agreement allows for
extensions if Hamas can release another 10 hostages a day, and a source close
to the group said Wednesday that it was willing to prolong the pause by four
days.
But with just an hour to go
before the truce was due to expire, Hamas said its offer to free another seven
hostages, and hand over the bodies of another three it said were killed in
Israeli bombardment, had been refused.
Both sides had earlier said
they were ready to return to fighting, with Hamas’s armed wing warning its
fighters to “maintain high military readiness... in anticipation of a
resumption of combat if it is not renewed,” according to a message posted on
its Telegram channel.
IDF spokesman Doron Spielman
said troops would “move into operational mode very quickly and continue with
our targets in Gaza,” if the truce expired.
Overnight, 10 more Israeli
hostages were freed under the terms of the deal, with another four Thai
hostages and two Israeli-Russian women released outside the framework of the
arrangement.
Video released by Hamas showed
masked gunmen handing hostages to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Among those freed was Liat
Beinin, who also holds American citizenship, and works as a guide at Israel’s
Holocaust museum Yad Vashem.
US President Joe Biden said he
was “deeply gratified” by the release.
“This deal has delivered
meaningful results,” he said of the truce.
Shortly after the hostages
arrived in Israel, the country’s prison service said 30 Palestinian prisoners
had been released, including well-known activist Ahed Tamimi.
Since the truce began on
November 24, 70 Israeli hostages have been freed in return for 210 Palestinian
prisoners.
Around 30 foreigners, most of
them Thais living in Israel, have been freed outside the terms of the deal.
Israel has made clear it sees
the truce as a temporary halt intended to free hostages, but there are growing
calls for a more sustained pause in fighting.
UN Secretary-General Antonio
Guterres demanded a “true humanitarian cease-fire,” warning Gazans are “in the
midst of an epic humanitarian catastrophe.”
And China, whose top diplomat
Wang Yi was in New York for Security Council talks on the violence, urged an
immediate “sustained humanitarian truce,” in a position paper released
Thursday.
The hostage releases have
brought joy tinged with agony, with families anxiously waiting each night to
learn if their loved ones will be freed, and learning harrowing details from
those who return.
Four-year-old Abigail was
captured after crawling out from under the body of her father, killed by
militants, covered in his blood, her great aunt Liz Hirsh Naftali said.
“It’s a miracle,” she said of
the little girl’s survival and release.
However Israel’s army also
said Wednesday it was investigating a claim by Hamas’s armed wing that a
10-month-old baby hostage, his four-year-old brother and their mother had all
been killed in an Israeli bombing in Gaza.
Israel pounded the Gaza Strip
relentlessly before the truce, forcing an estimated 1.7 million people to leave
their homes and limiting the entry of food, water, medicine and fuel.
Conditions in the territory
remain “catastrophic,” according to the World Food Programme, and the
population faces a “high risk of famine.
Israeli forces targeted
several hospitals in northern Gaza during the fighting, accusing Hamas of using
them for military purposes.
The spokesman for the
Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, Ashraf Al-Qudra, told AFP Wednesday that
doctors found five premature babies dead in Gaza City’s Al-Nasr hospital, which
medical staff had been forced to abandon.
The truce has allowed those
displaced to return to their homes, but for many there is little left.
“I discovered that my house
had been completely destroyed — 27 years of my life to build it and everything
is gone,” said Taghrid Al-Najjar, 46, after returning to her home in
southeastern Gaza.
The violence in Gaza has also
raised tensions in the West Bank, where nearly 240 Palestinians have been
killed by either Israeli soldiers or settlers since October 7, according to the
Palestinian health ministry.
An eight-year-old boy and a
teenager were the latest deaths in the occupied territory, with Israel saying
it “responded with live fire... and hits were identified” after suspects hurled
explosive devices toward troops.
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