Following days of doubt over whether the truce would take effect this weekend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced that Israel’s cabinet decided on Saturday to endorse a ceasefire and hostage release agreement for Gaza.
The truce would stop fighting and bombardment in the worst war in Gaza’s history and would go into effect on Sunday.
Additionally, it would make it possible to exchange hundreds of Palestinian detainees from Israeli prisons for the release of hostages who have been detained in the region since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
“The government has approved the hostage return plan”, Netanyahu’s office said early Saturday morning after the cabinet held its vote.
The justice ministry published a list of 95 Palestinians to be freed starting Sunday, “subject to government approval”. They include 69 women, 16 men and 10 minors.
Since the ceasefire agreement was announced, Israeli strikes have killed dozens of people; the military said Thursday that it had struck over 50 targets in Gaza in the past 24 hours.
The truce will go into effect on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration. Trump took credit for negotiating the agreement with the camp of former US President Joe Biden.
Netanyahu’s office stated that it “supports achieving the objectives of the war” after the Israeli security cabinet had previously approved it.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said the Palestinian Authority has completed preparations “to assume full responsibility in Gaza” after the war.
Even before the truce begins, displaced Gazans were preparing to return home.
“I will go to kiss my land,” said Nasr al-Gharabli, who fled his home in Gaza City for a camp further south. “If I die on my land, it would be better than being here as a displaced person.”
Regarding the remaining hostages captured in the Hamas attack, Israel experienced both happiness and sorrow.
The youngest hostage is Kfir Bibas, whose second birthday is this Saturday.
Many others are holding out hope because the Israeli military has not confirmed that Kfir, his four-year-old brother Ariel, and his mother Shiri were killed in an airstrike, despite Hamas’s November 2023 claim.
“I think of them, these two little redheads, and I get shivers,” said 70-year-old Osnat Nyska, whose grandchildren attended nursery with the Bibas brothers.
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