Gaza ceasefire deal being finalised, Palestinian official tells BBC

Gaza ceasefire deal being finalised, Palestinian official tells BBC


The phrases of a deal between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire in Gaza and the discharge of hostages are being finalised, a Palestinian official conversant in the negotiations has instructed the BBC.

It comes as White Home Nationwide Safety Advisor Jake Sullivan stated a truce and hostage deal could possibly be performed “this week”.

An Israeli official additionally instructed information company Reuters that negotiations had been in “superior phases”, with a deal doable in “hours, days or extra”.

US President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, and with Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani of Qatar – who’s mediating the negotiations – on Monday.

Sullivan stated Biden was additionally as a result of converse with Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi.

The most recent developments come as Netanyahu faces fierce opposition to a possible deal from inside his governing coalition. Ten right-wing members, together with some from Netanyahu’s personal Likud occasion, have despatched him a letter opposing a truce.

The Palestinian official instructed the BBC that Hamas and Israeli officers had been conducting oblique talks in the identical constructing on Monday.

Revealing some potential particulars of the settlement, the official said that “the detailed technical discussions took appreciable time”.

Each side agreed that Hamas would launch three hostages on the primary day of the settlement, after which Israel would start withdrawing the troops from populated areas.

Seven days later, Hamas would launch 4 extra hostages, and Israel would permit displaced folks within the southern to return to the north, however solely on foot by way of the coastal highway. Vehicles, animal-drawn carts, and vehicles could be permitted to cross by a passage adjoining to Salah al-Din Street, monitored by an X-ray machine operated by a Qatari-Egyptian technical safety group.

The settlement contains provisions for Israeli forces to stay within the Philadelphi corridor and keep an 800-meter buffer zone alongside the japanese and northern borders in the course of the first part, which can final 42 days.

Israel has additionally agreed to launch 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, together with roughly 190 who’ve been serving sentences of 15 years or extra. In trade, Hamas will launch 34 hostages.

Negotiations for the second and third phases of the settlement would start on the sixteenth day of the ceasefire.

In the meantime, Gaza’s civil defence company reported {that a} wave of Israeli air strikes on Gaza Metropolis on Monday killed greater than 50 folks.

“They bombed faculties, houses and even gatherings of individuals,” civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal instructed AFP.

The Israeli army stated it was trying into these stories. Individually, it stated 5 troopers had been killed on Monday within the north of the Gaza Strip.

The conflict was triggered by Hamas’s assault on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, by which about 1,200 folks had been killed and 251 others taken to Gaza as hostages.

Israel launched a army offensive in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response.

Gaza’s Hamas-run well being ministry says greater than 46,500 folks have been killed in the course of the conflict.

Israel says 94 of the hostages stay in Gaza, of whom 34 are presumed useless, in addition to one other 4 Israelis who had been kidnapped earlier than the conflict, two of whom are useless.



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