With just minutes to go before a six-day ceasefire expires, Israel and Hamas have reached an agreement to continue the pause in an effort to free the remaining hostages.
The ceasefire was due to expire on Thursday morning. Negotiations over its extension broke down, with last-minute disagreements over hostages to be released by Hamas in exchange for another day of cessation of fighting.
The extension was announced in a message on X of the Israeli army.
“In light of the efforts of the mediators to continue the process of releasing the abductees and in compliance with the terms of the agreement, the ceasefire will continue,” they wrote in Hebrew.
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said the ceasefire was extended under the same conditions as in the past, with Hamas releasing 10 Israeli hostages daily in exchange for 30 Palestinian prisoners.
With just minutes to go before a six-day ceasefire expires, Israel and Hamas have reached an agreement to continue the pause in an effort to free the remaining hostages.
International mediators had been working to extend the ceasefire in Gaza, encouraging Hamas terrorists to continue freeing hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners and further relief from Israel’s air and ground offensive.
Last night, the Israeli military said Hamas handed over 12 Israeli and four Thai hostages on the sixth day of the temporary ceasefire.
The ceasefire, which was extended from the first four days, has brought the first pause in the bombardment of Gaza, which has reduced much of the coastal area of 2.3 million to wasteland in response to a deadly attack by Hamas militants in southern Israel on October 7.
Hamas, which released 16 hostages on Wednesday in exchange for 30 Palestinian prisoners, said in a statement that the ceasefire would last for a seventh day.
The militant group previously said Israel had refused to receive another seven women and children and the bodies of three other hostages in exchange for extending the ceasefire.
Both sides had said they were ready to resume fighting.
Netanyahu underlined on Wednesday that Israel will resume its campaign to eliminate Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years and orchestrated the terrorist acts. deadly attack on Israel that caused the war.
“Will Israel return to the fight after this phase of returning our abductees is exhausted? So my answer is an unequivocal yes,” he said. “There’s no way we won’t fight to the end.”
He spoke ahead a visit to the region by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to push for further extensions of the ceasefire and the release of hostages. Blinken arrived in Israel late Wednesday.
Before the ceasefire, Israel bombed the area for seven weeks, killing more than 15,000 Palestinians in the coastal strip, according to health authorities.
Israel has welcomed the release of dozens of hostages in recent days and says it will maintain the ceasefire if Hamas continues to free prisoners.
However, Israel has pledged to resume the war in an effort to end Hamas’ 16-year rule in Gaza, but the country is facing mounting international pressure to extend the ceasefire and leave South Gaza in a devastating ground offensive, such as the one that destroyed much of the Gaza Strip. north.
Hamas’s ability to negotiate and implement the ceasefire suggests that Israel’s air and ground campaigns have not seriously challenged its control of Gaza, despite killing thousands of Palestinians and killing three of the four people in the area have been displaced from their homes.
Those released now face a long road to overcoming the trauma of their long captivity in Gaza.
The father of Emily Hand, an Irish-Israeli held hostage by Hamas for 50 days, has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to help his nine-year-old daughter recover after revealing how she spent her ninth birthday on the run for rockets. strikes in Gaza.
Four days after his daughter’s emotional release, Mr Hand told The Sun: ‘She was a happy, loud child, now she whispers. She’s being terrorized by terrorists in hell, but as her father, it’s my job to make things better, and I will.”