Source : NEW INDIAN EXPRESS NEWS
‘Confident’
Two far-right ministers have voiced opposition to the deal, with one threatening to quit the cabinet, but US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he believed the ceasefire would proceed.
“I am confident, and I fully expect that implementation will begin, as we said, on Sunday,” he said.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israel pounded several areas of the territory, killing more than 100 people and wounding hundreds more since the deal was announced on Wednesday.
Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, warned that Israeli strikes were risking the lives of hostages and could turn their “freedom… into a tragedy.”
The October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Of the 251 people taken hostage, 94 are still in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has destroyed much of Gaza, killing 46,876 people, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
Trump and Biden
The ceasefire agreement followed intensified efforts by mediators after months of fruitless negotiations, with Trump’s team taking credit for working with US President Joe Biden’s administration to seal the deal.
“If we weren’t involved… the deal would’ve never happened,” Trump said in an interview Thursday.
A senior Biden official said the unlikely pairing had been a decisive factor.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, announcing the agreement on Wednesday, said an initial 42-day ceasefire would see 33 hostages released.
On Friday, he said: “We seek a full implementation of the first phase, and for the second phase to be the final.
“We are waiting for the Security Council to issue a binding resolution to implement the agreement.”
The Israeli authorities assume the 33 are alive, but Hamas has yet to confirm that.
Also in the first phase, Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza’s densely populated areas and allow displaced Palestinians to return “to their residences”, he said.
Two sources close to Hamas told AFP three Israeli women soldiers would be the first to be released on Sunday evening.
The women may in fact be civilians, as the militant group refers to all Israelis of military age who have undergone mandatory military service as soldiers.
Once released they would be received by Red Cross staff and Egyptian and Qatari teams and taken to Egypt for medical examinations before returning to Israel, one source said on condition of anonymity.
Israel “is then expected to release the first group of Palestinian prisoners, including several with high sentences”, the source added.
Egypt was on Friday hosting technical talks on the implementation of the truce, state-linked media reported.
French President Emmanuel Macron said French-Israeli citizens Ofer Kalderon and Ohad Yahalomi were among hostages to be freed in the first phase.
Biden said the second phase could bring a “permanent end to the war”.
In aid-starved Gaza, where nearly all of its 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once, aid workers worry about the monumental task ahead.
“Everything has been destroyed, children are on the streets, you can’t pinpoint just one priority,” Doctors Without Borders (MSF) coordinator Amande Bazerolle told AFP.
SOURCE :- NEW INDIAN EXPRESS
