Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (fifth from right), heading a security cabinet meeting to vote on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal that should take effect on January 19, in Jerusalem on January 17, 2025. If approved, the agreement would halt fighting and bombardment in Gaza's deadliest-ever war. Photo / AFP
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (fifth from right), heading a security cabinet meeting to vote on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal that should take effect on January 19, in Jerusalem on January 17, 2025. If approved, the agreement would halt fighting and bombardment in Gaza's deadliest-ever war. Photo / AFP
A ceasefire in the Gaza war will begin, mediated by Qatar, with hostages and prisoners to be exchanged.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emphasised US support to resume war if necessary.
Hundreds of aid trucks are set to enter Gaza, as displaced Palestinians prepare to return home.
A ceasefire in the Gaza war will begin on Sunday morning (Sunday night NZT), mediator Qatar said, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows to bring back “all the hostages” held in the Palestinian territory.
The truce is intended to end more than 15 months of fighting anddevastating bombardment, but in a televised address the hawkish premier stressed Israel had US support to return to war if necessary.,
During an initial 42-day ceasefire, Palestinian militant groups will hand over 33 hostages, three of them on Sunday (local time), and Israel will release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, some of whom will be deported.
Since mediators Qatar and the United States, which brokered the deal with Egypt, announced the details on Wednesday, Israeli strikes on Gaza have continued.
On Saturday, Gaza’s civil defence rescue agency said at least five members of one family were killed when a strike hit their tent in Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza.
Explosions were heard over Jerusalem as Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched a barrage of missiles at Israel in a show of support for the Palestinians ahead of the truce.
A boy runs with a Palestinian flag atop a mound of rubble at a camp for people displaced by conflict in Bureij in the central Gaza Strip following the announcement of a truce amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. Photo / AFP
The Houthis said they targeted the Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv and also fired two missiles at the Red Sea port city of Eilat.
In Tel Aviv, an assailant Israel police described as a “terrorist” stabbed and seriously wounded a 30-year-old man before being “neutralised” by an armed civilian.
“As co-ordinated by the parties to the agreement and the mediators, the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will begin at 8.30am (tonight NZT) on Sunday,” Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said.
In more than 15 months of war between Hamas and Israel, there has been only one previous truce, for one week, in November 2023. That deal also saw the release of hostages held by the militants in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
He said the 42-day first phase, which starts on Sunday, was a “temporary ceasefire”.
A woman speaks with a girl outside a tent at a camp for people displaced by conflict in Bureij in the central Gaza Strip following the announcement of a truce amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. Photo / AFP
“If we are forced to resume the war, we will do so with force,” Netanyahu said.
But Hamas said Israel had “failed to achieve its aggressive goals” and “only succeeded in committing war crimes that disgrace the dignity of humanity”.
Israel’s justice ministry said 737 Palestinian prisoners and detainees would be freed as part of the deal’s first phase – none before 4pm local time on Sunday.
Trump says he told Netanyahu war ‘has to end’
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani told Sky News the framework signed this week was the same as one agreed in December 2023, adding it amounted to 13 months of “waste”.
Trump told US network NBC on Saturday that he had told Netanyahu that the war “has to end”. “We want it to end, but to keep doing what has to be done,” he said.
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, had completed preparations “to assume full responsibility in Gaza” after the war.
Israel has expressed no definitive stance on post-war governance beyond rejecting any role for either Hamas or the PA.
Outgoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Gaza should be under PA control.
People hold placards during an anti-government protest calling for action to secure the release of Israeli hostages held captive since the October 7, 2023 attacks by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, outside the Israeli Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv on January 18, 2025. Photo / AFP
Ahead of the truce, displaced Gazans prepared 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.”
Jerusalem residents said the deal had been a long time coming.
“Hopefully a maximum amount of hostages will be coming back”, said Beeri Yemeni, a university student. “Maybe this is the beginning of (the) end of suffering for both sides, hopefully,” he said, adding that “the war needed to end like a long, long time ago”.
Eight ministers in Israel’s hard-right Government voted against the deal, including far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
Hamas’ 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Of the 251 people taken hostage, 94 are still in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has destroyed much of Gaza, killing 46,899 people, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
Gaza aid-starved
Mediators had worked for months to reach a deal but the efforts were fruitless until Trump’s inauguration neared.
Brett McGurk, the point man for outgoing President Joe Biden, was joined in the region by Trump envoy Steve Witkoff in an unusual pairing to finalise the agreement, US officials said.
Netanyahu said most of the 33 captives to be released in the first phase are alive.
“With this agreement, we will bring back 33 of our brothers and sisters, the majority alive,” he said.
Israeli forces will withdraw from densely populated areas of Gaza and allow displaced Palestinians to return “to their residences”, the Qatari Prime Minister said.
Biden said an unfinalised second phase of the agreement would bring a “permanent end to the war”.
In aid-starved Gaza, humanitarian workers caution a monumental task lies ahead.
