The long-awaited ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has finally come into effect, behind schedule by almost three hours, during which Israeli forces continued to strike Gaza, blaming the Islamist group’s failure to release the names of the hostages due to be released on Sunday.
The ceasefire finally started at 9.15am Irish time, after Hamas posted the names of the three hostages on its social media channels.
The Hamas-run civil defence agency said eight people were killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip after the ceasefire was supposed to take effect. Three Palestinians were killed in eastern Gaza City by Israeli drones, said medics in the territory. The Israeli military said that it had struck “terror targets” in northern and central Gaza and it would continue to attack as long as Hamas did not meet its demands.
Hamas named the three female hostages as Romi Gonen (24), British-Israeli Emily Damari (28), and Doron Steinbrecher (31). The Red Cross has said the three have been released to it and were en route to Israel Defense Forces personnel in the Gaza Strip.
Ms Damari is the last remaining British hostage held since the October 2023 attack on Israel. She has been in captivity for 470 days. A lawyer for her family said there has been no “independent verification” that she will be released.
British prime minister Keir Starmer hailed Hamas’s release of three hostages including British citizen Emily Damari. “The release of three hostages today is wonderful and long-overdue news after months of agony for them and their families ... The UK stands ready to do everything it can to support a permanent and peaceful solution,” said the PM.
French president Emmanuel Macron told his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas in a phone call that a return to Palestinian governance was needed in Gaza and that the enclaves’s future should be aimed at the creation of a Palestinian state. However, Mr Macron also said that “no massacre, like the one perpetrated on October 7th [2023], can ever be committed against the Israeli people again”.
The ceasefire opens the way to a possible end to a 15-month war that has upended the Middle East. But the delay was a reminder of how fragile the process is likely to be.
Hamas’s armed wing said the group would abide by the ceasefire deal but that any possible Israeli violations would endanger the process and put the lives of hostages at risk.
In a video speech, al-Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Ubaida urged mediators to compel Israel to commit to the deal. He added that the group would abide by all phases of the agreement and the timetable of the hostages-for-prisoners swap accord.
“Everything is dependent on the commitment by the enemy. Violations from the side of the occupation [Israel] would put the process at risk,” said Mr Ubaida.
“We are keen to succeed in all stages of the agreement, its details and timings to preserve the blood of our people and achieve their goals, and we urge the mediators to compel the enemy to abide by it,” he added.
About 200 aid delivery trucks, including 20 carrying fuel, began arriving at the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing ahead of entry into the Gaza Strip, said two Egyptian sources.
Why did Israel finally agree to a ceasefire?
The three-stage ceasefire agreement follows months of on-off negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the United States, and came just before the inauguration of Donald Trump as US president on Monday.
Its first stage will last six weeks, during which 33 of the remaining 98 hostages — women, children, men over 50, the ill and wounded — are to be released in return for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
The prisoners include 737 male, female and teenage inmates, some of whom are members of militant groups convicted of attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, as well as hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza in detention since the start of the war.
After Sunday’s hostage release, according to lead US negotiator Brett McGurk, the accord calls for four more female hostages to be freed after seven days, followed by the release of three further hostages every seven days thereafter.
During the first phase, the Israeli army will pull back from some of its positions in Gaza, and Palestinians displaced from areas in northern Gaza will be allowed to return.
Outgoing US president Joe Biden’s team worked closely with Mr Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to push the deal over the line.
But what will come next in Gaza remains unclear, in the absence of a comprehensive agreement on the postwar future of the territory, which will require billions of dollars and years of work to rebuild.
Although the stated aim of the ceasefire is to end the war entirely, it could easily unravel. Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for almost 20 years, has survived despite losing its top leadership and thousands of fighters.
Israel has vowed it will not allow Hamas to return to power and has cleared large stretches of ground inside Gaza, in a step widely seen as a move towards creating a buffer zone.
In Israel, the return of the hostages may ease some of the public anger against Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government over the October 7th, 2023, security failure that led to the deadliest single day in the country’s history, at the hands of Hamas, with more than 1,200 people killed, according to Israel.
National security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s far-right party, Otzma Yehudit, announced on Sunday that it had officially left the governing coalition due to the implementation of the ceasefire, underlining the government’s fragility.
Israel’s military offensive on the Gaza Strip has killed at least 46,913 Palestinians and injured 110,750 since the start of the conflict in October 2023, the Palestinian enclave’s health ministry said in an update on Sunday. — Guardian/Reuters
