After a six-hour meeting, the Israeli Government approved the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, which will begin on Sunday, last 42 days and allow for the release of 33 hostages during this first phase. The news comes from the office of the Prime Minister Netanyahu, quoted by Reuters.
According to the same agency, 24 of the executive ministers voted in favor and eight against.
During the truce, Israel is expected to release a thousand Palestinian prisoners and withdraw the military from the population areas of the Gaza Strip. It is still planned to increase in humanitarian aid. This approval can be challenged by Israeli citizens, but courts are expected to reject such requests.
According to two sources close to Hamas cited by France Presse (AFP), the first group should include three Israeli women. Israeli authorities today designated 95 prisoners who could be released on Sunday, most of them women and minors, and many of them detained after October 7, 2023, the date the war began.
During this first phase, the parties must negotiate a second phase of the agreement, the objective of which is to reach a permanent ceasefire, as well as allow the release of the last hostages, before the third and final stage dedicated to the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip and the restitution of the bodies of the hostages who died in Hamas captivity.
The war in Gaza has been going on for 15 months, after an attack of Hamas on Israeli soil, on October 7, 2023, which left around 1200 dead and more than two hundred hostages. According to health authorities, 47,000 people have died in the territory since that date.
Source: expresso.pt
