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24-11-2023
JERUSALEM/ DOHA/ GAZA CITY: Qatar has announced key details of the planned pause in fighting and release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza by Hamas.
An official says the temporary ceasefire will begin at 07:00 local time on Friday and that the first group of 13 hostages will be freed at 16:00.
The pause in fighting was initially due to start earlier but an Israeli government source told media that Hamas had made extra demands.
In the first phase of the agreement, Hamas is due to release 50 hostages from Gaza and Israel will free 150 Palestinian prisoners.
In other developments from the war, the director of al-Shifa hospital in north Gaza has been detained by Israeli authorities for questioning.
Israel says it’s found evidence showing that the hospital under his management was a Hamas command centre; something Hamas itself has long denied.
Israel began attacking Gaza after the Hamas attacks last month, which killed 1,200 people and saw about 240 taken hostage.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says more than 14,000 people have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory campaign.
Qatar, who has played a crucial role in mediating a temporary truce deal between Hamas and the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), said a pause in fighting would begin at 07:00 local time (05:00 GMT) on Friday.
The temporary truce will apply to both north and south of the Gaza Strip, and the agreement is that 13 hostages will be released at 16:00 on the same day – all those being released are women and children.
Fifty hostages will be released in total across four days in exchange for a pause in fighting, and the release of 150 Palestinians currently held in Israeli jails.
A significant increase in aid allowed into Gaza also forms part of the agreement, as aid agencies repeat warnings of dire humanitarian conditions in the enclave.
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said the relatives of the 13 hostages chosen to be released on Friday have been informed, and that Israeli forces will be stationed at the ceasefire line when the pause in fighting begins.
The deal says for every additional 10 hostages released it will result in one additional day in the pause Hamas took more than 200 people hostage in its 7 October attack on southern Israel.
On the ground in Gaza, the Israeli military confirmed that it had detained the director of Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital after finding evidence which it says shows the facility under his management was used as a Hamas command and control centre. Hamas has long denied this claim.
Israel told media they were not suggesting that the hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya was a member of Hamas, adding that he was not under indictment.
The medical director of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza says the facility is under heavy fire from Israeli tanks and the situation has escalated.
And UN’s Palestinian refugee agency chief said he witnessed “unspeakable suffering of people” during a recent visit to Gaza, but he is hopeful that a pause in fighting will help aid reach north Gaza. (Int’l News Desk)
