A four-day pause in fighting in Gaza will start at 7 a.m. local time, while a first group of women and children hostages will be released by Hamas around 4 p.m., according to Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari.
Israel and Hamas, a militant group backed by Iran, reached an agreement this week. As well as the truce, Hamas is set to free 50 hostages, while Israel is meant to release 150 jailed Palestinians. All of the 200 will be women and children.
The accord, brokered by Qatar as well as Egypt and the US, was expected to start on Thursday morning, but the delay underscored its complexity and the difficulty of achieving a breakthrough between two warring sides.
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“These are critical hours,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog said earlier on Thursday after meeting the prime ministers of Spain and Belgium. “We are waiting and praying for the return of the first group of hostages and the entry into the cease-fire that was agreed.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he’s still confident of freeing all the roughly 240 people abducted by Hamas last month.
The deal’s “not without its challenges,” Netanyahu said after meeting UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron in Israel. “But we have to, we hope to get this first tranche out.”
In northern Gaza, there were more battles between Hamas militants and Israeli troops. And on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, there were further exchanges of fire on Thursday, with the Hezbollah militant group unleashing its largest barrage of rockets since the war began.
Israel and Hamas agreed that the Iran-backed group would free 50 women and children. In turn, Israel will release 150 women and Palestinians under the age of 19 from Israeli jails. US officials said three Americans would be among the hostages leaving Gaza.
Netanyahu said the war will carry on until Hamas, which the US and European Union designate a terrorist group, is destroyed. But the accord will still mark the first major lull in fighting since the conflict erupted just over six weeks ago.
Israeli media have reported that the cease-fire would start only after the Red Cross receives hostages from Hamas. An Egyptian official said it was expected to happen on Friday.
Under the deal, more aid is expected to flow into Hamas-controlled Gaza to alleviate what the United Nations and Palestinian officials say is a humanitarian disaster. A second stage could see the pause in fighting extended another day for every 10 additional hostages released.
The agreement falls short of calls from many nations for an extended cease-fire. Israel and the US have rejected such a move, saying it would allow Hamas to rearm.
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The deal’s outcome has high stakes for US President Joe Biden, who faces pressure from many in his own party to bring an end to Israel’s offensive, launched after an Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people in addition to the abductions. More than 14,850 people, including 6,150 children, have since been killed in the Palestinian enclave, the Hamas-run government media office said.
Biden and Netanyahu spoke by phone on Thursday, and the president emphasized “the importance of maintaining calm along the Lebanese border as well as in the West Bank” during the pause. Netanyahu made no concrete commitments, according to a report on Channel 13.
Wider diplomatic efforts to contain the conflict continued. The UK’s Cameron met Palestinian as well as Israeli officials. He also visited one of the Israeli communities near Gaza in which residents were massacred by Hamas fighters in October.
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Other events in the region underlined the risks of the war spilling over.
Hezbollah, also funded by Iran and considered a terrorist group by the US, said it launched 48 Katyusha rockets at an Israeli army base, Al-Manar TV reported. Israel said it intercepted some of them and struck back.
Earlier, Lebanese state media said an Israeli airstrike on a house in the village of Beit Yahoun killed four people and wounded another. Hezbollah said five of its members were killed, including the son of the head of its bloc in parliament. It wasn’t clear if it was the same incident.
It is unclear if groups such as Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen, who seized an Israeli-owned ship on Sunday and have fired missiles at Israel in the past month, will respect the truce.