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Ffriends over Israel and Gaza are worried I’m counting down the hours until the beginning of the historic cease-fire in Gaza after 15 months of brutal war which ravaged the territory. A truce will allow return of hostages held since the beginning of the conflict.
Benjamin Netanyahu said he expected hostage release begins on Sunday, and Israel is expected to finally approve the deal. It will bring relief to families who have had to deal with the loss of loved ones amid the devastation in Gaza – although they admit the ceasefire is a fragile thing that needs work to last beyond the first six weeks.
A family member of the hostage said The Independent that “we must go all the way with the ceasefire agreement, no one must be left behind”, while another said that “enough is enough, bring everyone back home”.
Israel’s security cabinet recommended approval of a cease-fire and hostage return deal in Gaza on Friday, and the rest of the government is expected to follow suit later, allowing the truce to begin on Sunday.
Hamas launched the war with a cross-border attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 that killed around 1,200 people and captured around 250 others. Israel believes 94 of them are still being held in Gaza, and about 60 are still alive.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who say women and children make up more than half of those killed. About 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been driven from their homes at least once by the bombing, leaving much of the enclave a wasteland.
Speaking from Hostage Square, where families hold regular protests demanding the government bring their relatives home, Shay Dickmann, a 29-year-old medical student whose cousins Carmel Gat and Yarden Roman-Gat were captured on October 7, said The Independent: “We must go all the way with the ceasefire agreement, no one must be left behind”.
Her family knows the painful reality of failed deals. Yarden was released in November 2023, but Carmel, a 39-year-old occupational therapist, was due to be released under the current contract when it was first introduced last year. She was killed by her captors in a Gaza tunnel when negotiations broke down. Tearfully, Shay urges, “This uncertainty is tearing families apart—there’s a chance they could all be released. If this opportunity is missed, you have no idea how long it will be until the next time”.
Israeli cabinet meetings were postponed on Thursday, with Mr Netanyahu accusing Hamas of reneging on the deal, amid intense pressure from hardline partners in his governing coalition. Underscoring the potential obstacles facing a final ceasefire, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has threatened to resign if it is approved. However, he said he would not topple Netanyahu’s government. His fellow hardliner, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, has also threatened to quit the government unless he returns to the war and defeats Hamas when the initial phase of the ceasefire ends.
As part of the first phase of the deal, which will last 42 days, Hamas agreed to release 33 hostages, including children, women, including female soldiers and men over 50. In exchange, Israel will release 50 Palestinian prisoners for every female Israeli soldier released by Hamas, and 30 for the other hostages. The rest of the hostages, including male soldiers, are to be released in a second – and much more difficult – phase to be negotiated during the first. The third phase would deal with the exchange of bodies of deceased hostages and members of Hamas, and a plan for the reconstruction of Gaza would be launched.
“Seeing people coming back brings tears of joy,” said Alana Zeitchik, who has six family members seized by Hamas from Kibbutz Nir Oz in the Hamas raid. Four of her captured relatives, including a cousin and her three-year-old twin daughters, were released in the latest one-week truce in November 2023. In the deal, she expects close friends – the Bibas family – to be returned home, including the youngest hostage, Kfir Bibas who was only eight months old when he was kidnapped.
But Alana’s cousin David Cunio, 34 – an electrician and father of twins – and his brother Ariel Cunio, 27, a civilian and a young man, are not on the list of the first 33 to be released. Alana describes “euphoria” when her cousin Sharon Alony-Cunio, three-year-old twin daughters Emma and Yuli, as well as Danielle Alony, 44, and her five-year-old daughter Amelia were released last year, but she worries the ceasefire may not last long enough to bring her other relatives back home.
“We are concerned that it will cloud the urgency that we will have to ensure that the agreement progresses to the second stage,” she says. “We have no commitment from this government that the second phase will happen, or that it will happen in any way.”
Regarding the comments of the Israeli ministers Mr. Smotrich and Mr. Ben-Gvira, she says: “The ministers who said they wanted to reject the agreement, they are a stain on the State of Israel and do not represent the State of Israel… They must put all our people above politics.”
The families of some of the hostages, mostly relatives of the young men held by Hamas who are not involved in the first phase, sent a letter to Mr. Netanyahu on Friday urging him to publicly approve “all phases of the deal … until the return of the last hostage.” In a letter reported by Haaretz, they said he had to do it to prevent division in the country”.
Israel has said that the names of the hostages will only be released after they are handed over to the Israeli army. A list of the names of those to be published over the next six weeks has been circulating on major Israeli news sites since the early hours of Friday morning. Israel’s Justice Ministry also released a list of 95 Palestinians held in Israeli custody who will be freed in the first hostage-release deal with Hamas. Most of the people on the list are women, and the vast majority were arrested after the October 7 attack by Hamas.
The releases will be consecutive. Three Israeli hostages are expected to be released on Sunday, followed by four more on the seventh day and again at the end of each week of the ceasefire.
French President Emmanuel Macron said French-Israeli citizens Ofer Calderon and Ohad Yahalomi were among the first group of hostages to be freed.
The first phase of the deal will also allow Palestinians displaced from their homes to move freely around the Gaza Strip, while aid to the territory is set to increase to 600 trucks a day, above the minimum of 500 that aid agencies say is needed to contain the devastating humanitarian crisis. crisis and hunger crisis in Gaza. So far, the number of daily aid trucks has been far below this number, according to the UN and aid agencies, leaving hundreds of thousands of people facing extreme hunger while much of the population struggles to get what they need.
Ibrahim al-Muslimi, 75, a community leader from the most heavily destroyed Gaza area in the north says The Independent that families are torn between celebrating the imminent ceasefire and fearing the future.
“Gaza has been hit by a disaster. We need food afterwards [a] long sharp wave of hunger and exorbitant prices. We need water, electricity, sewage. We need medical help. We live in tents, we need homes. we need psychological help”.
As airstrikes on Gaza continue, after one strike on tents housing displaced people, a boy picked through damaged items on a floor littered with canned food and coffee pots.
The attack killed two people and wounded seven in a camp near Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, according to doctors.
Also in Khan Younis, mourners gathered around the body of a man killed in an Israeli attack while women hugged and wept.
“Life has become an unbearable hell,” Jomaa resident Abed al-Aal told Reuters.
Long-term questions remain about post-war Gaza, including who will rule the territory or oversee the daunting task of rebuilding it. Hanaa Ahmed, 64, who has been displaced five times, lost numerous family members in airstrikes and her son disappeared after being arrested and held incommunicado by the Israeli army. “The most important aspect of the agreement for me is the release of prisoners from Israeli prisons. I am also concerned about the process of reconstruction and long-term living in tents. The feeling of anxiety continues.”
Al-Muslimi echoes the thoughts of many in Gaza when he says he hopes countries around the world will “stand with us [in Gaza] and do not leave us”.