Photo: Collected
The ceasefire deal agreed between Israel and Hamas has come into effect in Gaza today (19 January) after a nearly three-hour delay during which Israeli attacks killed several Palestinians.
Gaza ceasefire went into effect imminently at 11:15am local time (0915 GMT), said Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office in a statement said the release of three captives held in Gaza will take place after 14:00 GMT today and four other living female hostages would be freed in seven days, reports Al Jazeera.
The six-week initial ceasefire phase includes the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from central Gaza and the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza.
The deal requires 600 truckloads of humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza every day of the ceasefire, 50 carrying fuel, with 300 of the trucks allocated to the north, where conditions for civilians are particularly harsh.
In a statement, Majed al-Ansari, the spokesperson of mediator Qatar's foreign ministry, also confirmed the beginning of the ceasefire, saying, "Regarding reports when the ceasefire will begin in Gaza, we confirm that the names of the three hostages to be released today have been handed over to the Israeli side."
"They are three Israeli citizens, one of whom is of Romanian nationality and the other of British nationality, and thus the ceasefire has begun," he said.
Earlier in the day, Israeli warplanes and artillery attacked the northern Gaza Strip and Palestinian medics said several people were killed shortly after Israel and Hamas missed a deadline for the ceasefire that could pave the way for halting the Middle East's most devastating conflict in years.
At least 19 people were killed and 36 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza, with 36 wounded during the truce delay until 11:30am local time (09:30 GMT), according to Mahmoud Basal, the spokesperson for Gaza's Civil Defense, reports Al Jazeera.
One person was killed in Rafah, six people were killed in Khan Younis, nine were killed in Gaza City and three in the north, he said in a statement.
The delay in implementing the ceasefire and the latest violence came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked, an hour before the 0630 GMT deadline, that Hamas provide the names of three hostages it was to release on Sunday as part of the agreement.
Hamas said it was committed to the ceasefire but that it had been unable so far to provide the hostage list for "technical field reasons", without elaborating.
The ceasefire deal could help usher in an end to the Gaza war, which began after Palestinian militant group Hamas, which controls the tiny coastal territory, attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel's response decimated the Gaza Strip, killing nearly 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza-based health authorities. The war also set off a confrontation throughout the Middle East between Israel and its arch-foe Iran, which backs Hamas and other anti-Israeli and anti-American paramilitary forces across the region.
Israeli military spokespeople said in separate statements on Sunday that their aircraft and artillery had attacked "terror targets" in northern and central Gaza, and that the military would continue to attack the strip as long as Hamas did not meet its obligations under the ceasefire.
Netanyahu says ceasefire will not start until Hamas releases hostage list
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Gaza's ceasefire, due to start at 0630 GMT on Sunday, will not begin until the Palestinian fighter group Hamas provides a list of hostages to be released.
Netanyahu's announcement comes one hour before the ceasefire deadline. Hostages were expected to be released within hours of the start of the ceasefire, opening the way to a possible end to a 15-month war that has upended the Middle East.
"The prime minister instructed the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) that the ceasefire, which is supposed to go into effect at 8:30 a.m., will not begin until Israel has the list of released abductees that Hamas has pledged to provide," his office said on Sunday.
Hamas on Sunday affirmed its commitment to the Gaza ceasefire deal, saying the delay in disclosing the names of hostages to be released in first phase was due to "technical field reasons".
Israeli forces had started withdrawing from areas in Gaza's Rafah to the Philadelphi corridor along the border between Egypt and Gaza, pro-Hamas media reported early on Sunday.
Israel's military warned Gaza residents not to approach its troops or move around the Palestinian territory ahead of the ceasefire deadline, adding when movement is allowed "a statement and instructions will be issued on safe transit methods".
The ceasefire agreement followed months of on-off negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the United States, and came just ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump.
The three-stage ceasefire will come into effect at 0630 GMT on Sunday.
Its first stage will last six weeks, during which 33 of the remaining 98 hostages - women, children, men over 50, the ill and wounded - will be released in return for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
They include 737 male, female and teen-aged prisoners, some of whom are members of fighter 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.
Three female hostages are expected to be released on Sunday afternoon through the Red Cross, in return for 30 prisoners each.
After Sunday's hostage release, lead US negotiator Brett McGurk said, 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.
US President Joe Biden's team worked closely with Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to push the deal over the line.
As his inauguration approached, Trump had repeated his demand that a deal be done swiftly, warning repeatedly that there would be "hell to pay" if the hostages were not released.
But what will come next in Gaza remains unclear in the absence of a comprehensive agreement on the postwar future of the enclave, which will require billions of dollars and years of work to rebuild.
And although the stated aim of the ceasefire is to end the war entirely, it could easily unravel.
Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for almost two decades, 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 that will allow its troops to act freely against threats in the enclave.
In Israel, the return of the hostages may ease some of the public anger against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government over the Oct. 7 security failure that led to the deadliest single day in the country's history.
But hardliners in his government have already threatened to quit if war on Hamas is not resumed, leaving him pressed between Washington's desire to see the war end, and his far-right political allies at home.
And if war resumes, dozens of hostages could be left behind in Gaza.
Outside Gaza, the war sent shockwaves across the region, triggering a war with the Tehran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah movement and bringing Israel into direct conflict with its arch-foe Iran for the first time.
More than a year later, the Middle East has been transformed. Iran, which spent billions building up a network of fighter groups around Israel, has seen its "Axis of Resistance" wrecked and was unable to inflict more than minimal damage on Israel in two major missile attacks.
Hezbollah, whose huge missile arsenal was once seen as the biggest threat to Israel, has been humbled, with its top leadership killed and most of its missiles and military infrastructure destroyed.
In the aftermath, the decades-long Assad regime in Syria was overturned, removing another major Iranian ally and leaving Israel's military effectively unchallenged in the region.
But on the diplomatic front, Israel has faced outrage and isolation over the death and devastation in Gaza.
Netanyahu faces an International Criminal Court arrest warrant on war crimes allegations and separate accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice.
Israel has reacted with fury to both cases, rejecting the charges as politically motivated and accusing South Africa, which brought the original ICJ case as well as the countries that have joined it, of antisemitism.
The war was triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. More than 400 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat in Gaza since.
Israel's 15-month campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health ministry figures, which do not distinguish between fighters and civilians, and left the narrow coastal enclave a wasteland of rubble.
Health officials say most of the dead are civilians. Israel says more than a third are fighters.
Messenger/JRTarek
