Qatar’s foreign ministry announced on Saturday that the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas will take effect in less than twenty-four hours.
The ceasefire will begin at 8:30 am (6:30 GMT) on Sunday, according to a post on X by foreign minister Majid al-Ansari, who also urged people to be cautious and wait for official instructions.
The agreement for a ceasefire in Gaza, which would free scores of hostages and halt the 15-month conflict with Hamas, was accepted by Israel’s Cabinet early this morning, bringing the parties one step closer to putting an end to their bloodiest and most damaging conflict to date.
The army claimed to have intercepted rockets fired from Yemen, but sirens rang throughout central Israel on Saturday in spite of the truce announcement.
33 hostages will be freed over the course of the next six weeks as part of the first phase of the truce, in return for hundreds of Palestinians who Israel has imprisoned.
The second phase, which will be discussed within the first, will see the release of the remaining personnel, including male soldiers.
Hamas has stated that unless there is a permanent ceasefire and an Israeli pullout, it will not free the remaining hostages.
Key issues regarding the ceasefire, the second of its kind throughout the war, still need to be answered, though, such as whether of the 33 hostages who are to be released is still alive.
Hamas has agreed to free three female hostages on Day 1 of the deal, four on Day 7, and the remaining 26 over the following five weeks.
Palestinian detainees are to be released as well.
Israel’s justice ministry has published a list of more than 700 people who are to be freed in the deal’s first phase, and said the release will not begin before 4 pm local time on Sunday.
All people on the list are younger or female.
Also during the first phase, Israeli troops are to pull back into a buffer zone about a kilometre wide inside Gaza, along its borders with Israel.
The move will allow displaced Palestinians to return to their homes, including in Gaza City and northern Gaza.
With most of Gaza’s population driven into massive, squalid tent camps, Palestinians are desperate to get back to their homes, even though many were destroyed or heavily damaged by Israel’s campaign.
The largely-devastated territory is expected to see a surge in humanitarian aid.
Trucks carrying aid lined up on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing into Gaza on Friday.
On Saturday, two Egyptian government ministers arrived in the northern Sinai Peninsula to oversee the preparations for the delivery of aid and to receive the evacuation of wounded patients, the health ministry said.
Hamas triggered the war with its October 7, 2023, cross-border attack into Israel that killed some 1,200 people and left some 250 others captive.
Nearly 100 hostages remain in Gaza.
Israel responded with a devastating offensive that has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and militants but say women and children make up more than half the dead.