A truce between Israel and Hamas that was scheduled to begin at 7 a.m. local time (12 a.m. ET) Friday is believed to be holding, with civilian hostages held captive by militants expected to be released in the coming hours as part of a breakthrough diplomatic deal following an uneasy day-long delay. <\/p>\n
The pause in fighting, part of the carefully negotiated agreement announced Wednesday, appeared to be taking effect despite <\/strong>what sounded like sporadic Israeli artillery fire and sirens warning of rockets from Gaza in the minutes after it was due to begin. <\/p>\n They heard what sounded like small arms fire inside Gaza about 20 minutes later, but artillery fire, airstrikes and rockets appear to have stopped. <\/p>\n Two hundred trucks \u201cloaded with food, medicine and water,\u201d as well as others transporting fuel would cross into the Gaza Strip each day starting Friday, Diaa Rashwan, the chairman of Egypt\u2019s State Information Service said that morning. <\/p>\n Sixty-seven Palestinians who got stuck in Egypt during the war traveled back into Gaza via the Rafah border crossing on Friday, hours after the truce went into effect. More Palestinians will be allowed to cross into the Strip starting Saturday if they wish to do so, the Palestinian embassy in Cairo said. <\/p>\n The first hostage release from Gaza is scheduled to take place later Friday, when <\/strong>13 women and children held captive in Gaza\u00a0are expected to be freed, mediators in Qatar said the previous day. Thirty-nine Palestinian prisoners would also be released by Israel Friday as part of the deal, according to an Israeli official. <\/p>\n The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it has completed preparations for receiving hostages released from Gaza back into Israel, including readying several locations with medical provisions and support for their initial reception. <\/p>\n The implementation of the four-day truce would mark the first sustained break in hostilities after nearly seven weeks of conflict \u2013 and the first expected large-scale release of hostages. <\/p>\n The agreement followed mounting pressure on the Israeli government from the families of the hostages, who have demanded answers and action from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. <\/p>\n It also comes amid growing international pressure for more humanitarian support for the people of Gaza, where the number of people killed since October 7 now stands at 14,854, according to information from Hamas authorities in the Strip. <\/p>\n Israel declared war on Hamas following the militant group\u2019s bloody October 7 terror attack on its territory, in which more than 1,200 people were killed \u2013 the largest such attack on Israel since the country\u2019s founding in 1948. <\/p>\n Militants are holding more than 200 people captive inside Gaza from mass abductions that day, according to figures from the Israeli military. <\/p>\n The IDF said Friday that they destroyed a number of tunnels underneath the Al-Shifa Hospital area in Gaza City they believe are used by Hamas and completed \u201coperational preparations\u201d according to the agreed truce, ahead of its anticipated start. <\/p>\n Israel\u2019s defense minister said he expects the military operation against Hamas will continue \u201cforcefully\u201d after the truce. <\/p>\n Under terms previously announced by Qatar, a total of 50 of those hostages, women and children, are expected to be freed over a four-day humanitarian pause in fighting. <\/p>\n The first batch of hostages is expected to be released from Gaza at around 4 p.m. local time Friday and handed to the International Committee of the Red Cross, Qatar Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majid Al-Ansari said Thursday ahead of the pause. <\/p>\n Israel\u2019s Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs\u00a0has released detailed instructions on how to care for released hostages who are children, advising IDF\u00a0troops\u00a0on how to interact with them\u00a0in the moments following their release. <\/p>\n \u201cChildren will ask questions such as, \u2018Where\u2019s Mum? Where\u2019s Daddy?\u2019 Soldiers should not answer these questions, even if they know the answers. Any questions should be answered along the lines of, \u2018Sweetheart, I\u2019m sorry, I don\u2019t know. My job is to bring you to Israel to a safe place, where people you know will be waiting for you and will answer all your questions,\u2019\u201d the\u00a0advice\u00a0says. <\/p>\n The deal also includes the further release of 150 prisoners during\u00a0the four-day period, according to Israel. There is also the potential for an extension and more releases in the days following the currently agreed pause. Most of the prisoners concerned are male teenagers, along with some women, according to an Israeli government list of those who could be released. <\/p>\n The total number of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails is approximately 8,300, according to Qadura Fares, the head of the Palestinian Prisoners Club, a non-governmental organization. <\/p>\n Of those, more than 3,000 are being held in what Israel calls \u201cadministrative detention,\u201d which Amnesty International says can be extended indefinitely. <\/p>\n The truce has been seen as an opportunity to ramp up humanitarian support to Gaza, though Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson Al-Ansari\u00a0on Thursday warned \u201cit would be a fraction of the need.\u201d <\/p>\n The enclave has been struggling with severe shortages of basic supplies, food and fuel amid power outages and bombardment, with humanitarian groups and governments saying the levels of aid allowed in in past weeks were insufficient. <\/p>\n Israel has been highly reluctant to allow fuel into Gaza since October 7, citing concerns Hamas will use it to power its operations, even as aid groups say it\u2019s critical for cooking food and maintaining operations at hospitals. Last week it agreed to allow minimal deliveries. <\/p>\n Israel\u2019s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, said in a statement Friday that four fuel tankers and four tankers of cooking gas crossed into Gaza through the Rafah Crossing. <\/p>\n \u201cThe fuel and cooking gas are designated for operating essential humanitarian infrastructure in Gaza\u201d and was approved by the Israeli government as part of the truce, the statement said. <\/p>\n\n A truce between Israel and Hamas that was scheduled to begin at 7 a.m. local time (12 a.m. ET) Friday is believed to be holding, with civilian hostages held captive by militants expected to be released in the coming hours as part of a breakthrough diplomatic deal following an uneasy day-long delay. The pause in <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12040,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} Expected hostage release<\/h2>\n
Humanitarian aid<\/h2>\n