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Relatives of hostages due to be freed in Sunday’s ceasefire say they do not know whether to prepare for a “festival or a funeral” as tensions between the two sides rose just hours before the deal was scheduled to begin.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a fresh warning on Saturday night, saying his government was “unable to make progress within” the agreement, raising further concerns about the fragile agreement. He said Israel has yet to receive a list of hostages to be released, as agreed.
“Israel will not tolerate violations of the agreement. Hamas is solely responsible,” he said, before threatening to resume hostilities. “We are holding some significant assets to ensure the return of all the struggling hostages. We reserve the right to continue the fight if the second phase seems pointless.
“If we continue to fight, we will do so in new ways and with tremendous force. Hamas tried to dictate to us, but I was firmly against it. We reserve the right to continue the war if we are not satisfied with US support.”
Israeli warplanes and tanks, meanwhile, attacked the Gaza Strip in the hours leading up to the truce, hitting 50 “targets” since Friday, Israel’s military said. Israeli tanks shelled Gaza City and airstrikes hit central and southern Gaza, including displaced people in tents in the so-called humanitarian zone of the Mawasi area. In total, since the cease-fire agreement was announced on Wednesday, Palestinian media reports that at least 123 Palestinians have been killed in the attacks.
Families of those expected to be among the first group to be released said they were concerned the deal was so complicated and fragile that it could easily collapse before the remaining 65 hostages were freed.
They are also concerned that no one knows how many of the 33 hostages due to be freed in the first six weeks are still alive. Israeli media reports that eight of them may have died during the last 15 months of captivity under fire.
Ofri Bibas Levy, the aunt of the youngest hostage, Kfir Bibas, spoke at the rally about her concerns, which he did not express. Kfir was only 8 months old when he was abducted with his five-year-old brother and mother, and he turned two years old on Saturday.
“Today, for the second time, I tried to write a birthday message to Kfir. A message for a child who cannot celebrate,” she said in tears while addressing a rally in Tel Aviv. “A child who is not here. A child trapped in hell, but there are no words, only tears. ”
Daniel Lifshitz, whose 84-year-old grandfather Oded is among the oldest hostages to be released, told The Independent that the last known evidence of life the family had was from November 2023.
Oded, a retired journalist and peace activist who has a British family, was seized along with his wife Yocheved from Nir Oz on October 7. He has lung disease and high blood pressure, and was last seen by the other hostage more than a year ago.
“I don’t know what to prepare for: a festival or a funeral,” he said The Independent on Saturday night. “Both are really possible. So how can I prepare for one and face the other? Time will tell.
“We’re just hoping for a miracle to happen. That he will get back on his feet and that we will accept him with blessing and love.
“Maybe it’s time for humanity to come back. Humanitarian aid goes to Gaza. Our hostages are coming back.”
In Gaza, families said they were cautiously optimistic about the cease-fire, but were growing worried as the strip was hit by airstrikes.
“We try not to get too excited in case things don’t go as planned,” said Ansam, 20, who has been displaced five times and lost more than a dozen members of her extended family. “At night, airstrikes are difficult,” she added.
The Qatari-US-brokered ceasefire in Gaza is due to take effect at 6.30am GMT on Sunday, according to Qatar’s foreign minister, with the actual exchange due to take place at 4pm local time.
Many hope it will herald the end of a devastating 15-month conflict that has claimed the lives of 46,000 Palestinians – more than half of them women and children – as well as over 1,000 Israelis.
The White House expects the three female hostages to be released to Israel this afternoon through the Red Cross. The remaining 30, including women, children, men over 50 and the sick or wounded, will be released in groups of three or four over the next five weeks.
Hundreds of Palestinian detainees will also be released, and there should be an increase in humanitarian aid to the largely devastated Gaza. The Israeli Ministry of Justice published a list of 734 Palestinian prisoners who will be released in the first phase of the agreement, among them dozens of women and minors, and the youngest detainee is only 16 years old.
A senior Israeli military official said preparations to receive the hostages were complete, with three reception sites along the border area between Gaza and Israel: in Zikim for the northern part of the strip, Kerem Shalom for the southern and another in the center set up when the Red Cross delivers hostages there.
The hostages will be met by members of the Israeli military, medics and mental health specialists for an initial assessment before being taken by road or helicopter to six hospitals across the country.
The official said the Israeli military is also adjusting its deployment in Gaza along with a gradual withdrawal from certain locations and routes inside Gaza. He said the 162nd Division would take over responsibility for northern Gaza. The 143rd Division will assume responsibility for the southern Gaza Strip.
The 99th Division is located in the Netzarim Corridor – an area under Israeli control since November 2023, which bisects Gaza – and “will gradually move as this agreement progresses”.
Israeli forces are scheduled to begin withdrawing from the Netzarim corridor on the seventh day. By the end of the first 42 days, they should also withdraw from the corridor to Philadelphia, which is an area along the border between Gaza and Egypt. The official said Palestinian civilians in Gaza “should not approach areas where IDF soldiers are stationed,” which will change as the gradual withdrawal continues.
Israel continued to strike Gaza, killing at least 23 people in the last 24 hours alone. Among the affected areas was a tent housing a family displaced from other parts of Gaza.
“What is this truce that kills us hours before it starts?” asked Abdallah Al-Aqad, the brother of a woman killed in an airstrike in the southern city of Khan Younis. Health officials said the couple and their two children, aged two and seven, were killed.
In the afternoon, sirens sounded across central and southern Israel, including Tel Aviv, and the military said it intercepted missiles fired from Yemen. Iran-backed Houthi rebels there have stepped up attacks in recent weeks, calling it solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Later Saturday, Israeli police said one person was seriously wounded in a stabbing in central Tel Aviv that they described as a “terrorist attack.” The incident caused fear among civilians in Gaza and Israel.
In Gaza, Ansam said her family hopes the ceasefire will hold, adding that one of the immediate benefits of announcing the agreement is that food prices, which are prohibitively expensive, have started to fall. Gaza was in the hands of famine.
“For the first time, we can buy flour; we can eat three meals a day,” she said. “For the last two months it was so bad that we could only eat once a day.”
In Israel, famlil Daniel, who was anxiously waiting for news about his grandfather, said The Independent his family was worried that the truce would not even “hold to the end of the first phase”, let alone continue for the second and third phases, because it was so complicated.
He urged the world to work “day and night” to try to see it through, adding: “I believe it will go forward and I believe everyone will come back.”