The humanitarian truce will begin on Friday morning in the Gaza Strip, followed a few hours later by the release of the first batch of civilian hostages held by Hamas, the spokesperson of the Qatari Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday.
Spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said: “The humanitarian truce will begin exactly at seven in the morning on Friday (local time), and the first batch of civilian hostages will be delivered from the Gaza Strip at exactly four in the morning.” “On Friday evening”, noting that the number of those released is The first day will be the 13th.
Al-Ansari explained that the Red Cross will be responsible for receiving the hostages released by the Hamas movement.
The Qatari spokesperson confirmed that “we cannot reveal the number of Palestinians who will be released on Friday.”
He added: “It is clear that each day will include a certain number of released civilians, as agreed, bringing the total to 50 over a four-day period.”
“In these four days – he continued – information will be collected on the rest of the hostages to consider the possibility of releasing a greater number of hostages and therefore extending this truce”.
Al-Ansari explained that “the lists of civilians who will be released from Gaza have been handed over to the Israeli secret services”. For its part, Israel confirmed that it had received a preliminary list of the names of the hostages who will be released under the agreement.
Al-Ansari explained that the ceasefire reached includes the entire Gaza Strip, and “during this period a complete ceasefire will take place, both from the air and from the ground, and we hope that there will be no violations.”
For his part, Hamas official Bassem Naim spoke of engaging in “a marathon and difficult negotiations to reach this humanitarian truce in Gaza.”
Naeem said Thursday: “We agreed on the release of Palestinian women prisoners and children from occupation prisons based on seniority.”
Qatar hopes to extend the number of days of the truce as part of a mechanism to free hostages held by Hamas.
Hamas confirmed that the truce will last four days and that the movement will commit to suspending its operations.
They will be released on Friday. Israel receives preliminary list of ‘first abductee group’
The Israeli prime minister’s office announced Thursday that it had received “a preliminary list of the names of the first group of abductees who are expected to be released tomorrow (Friday)” under the truce agreement with Hamas, and that contacts are underway with their families.
Qatar thanked the United States for its role in mediating efforts to reach a humanitarian ceasefire agreement.
Doha confirmed that the agreement focuses on the ongoing war in Gaza, but hopes that the implementation of the truce will restore calm to all Palestinian territories, including the West Bank.
At dawn on Wednesday it was announced that an agreement had been reached between Israel and Hamas through mediation led by Qatar and in which the United States and Egypt participated.
Under the agreement, Hamas releases 50 hostages it held during the unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, and Israel releases Palestinian detainees, provided a four-day truce comes into force in the Gaza Strip.
According to the latest toll released by Hamas, more than 14,000 people have been killed, most of them civilians, in Israeli bombardments on the Gaza Strip since 7 October. Furthermore, according to Israeli authorities, the Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,200 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, while the movement managed to take 240 hostages in the Strip.