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The Israeli government approved a cease-fire deal with Hamas early Saturday that calls for the release of dozens of hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners after hours of deliberations, setting up the first reprieve in a 15-month, devastating war in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n
The Israeli prime minister\u2019s office, which announced the agreement after the full cabinet voted, said the deal would go into effect on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Palestinians have celebrated the provisional cease-fire with the hope that it will finally end the conflict and Israelis are anxiously awaiting the return of scores of captives abducted by Hamas.<\/p>\n
Daniel Lifshitz, whose grandfather Oded, 84, was among the 250 captives taken in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, said, \u201cThe stomach is turning, and the heart is poured out on the floor, but it\u2019s what we\u2019ve been waiting for.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The initial attack killed about 1,200 people, setting off a wave of bombardments by Israel that has killed over 46,000 Palestinians, according to Gazan health officials, who do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.<\/p>\n
The vote on Saturday was the second and final one required to approve the cease-fire and hostage release agreement. Hours earlier on Friday, the security cabinet voted to approve it, overcoming a key hurdle to enacting a deal that U.S. and other diplomats see as the best chance to end the war. Hamas had said that there were no longer any barriers to the agreement.<\/p>\n
President Isaac Herzog of Israel, who holds a largely ceremonial role, had hailed the security cabinet\u2019s vote, although he acknowledged the difficulties ahead in enacting the agreement. \u201cI harbor no illusions \u2014 the deal will bring with it great challenges and painful, agonizing moments,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Under the agreement, both sides would begin a six-week truce, during which Israeli forces would withdraw eastward, away from populated areas. Hamas would free 33 of the hostages still in captivity, mostly women and older people.<\/p>\n
Mr. Lifshitz\u2019s grandfather is among the hostages set to be released in the deal\u2019s initial phase, but the family has no information about his well-being or whether he is still alive. \u201cPreparing for a festivity and a funeral simultaneously is impossible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Israel would also release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including some serving long sentences for attacks on Israelis. On Friday evening, the Israeli government released a list of 95 Palestinian prisoners that it said would be among the first to be released on Sunday, including Khalida Jarrar<\/a>, a prominent lawmaker in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The cease-fire agreement passed with 24 ministers voting in favor and eight ministers opposed, according to an Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Most of the ministers who voted against the deal belong to two far-right parties that had denounced the deal, the official said.<\/p>\n The truce would be the first since November 2023, when 105 hostages were freed in a weeklong cease-fire in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.<\/p>\n A host of questions has shadowed the celebrations among relatives of hostages, Gazans desperate for the war to stop and diplomats who have struggled for months to broker a truce. What happens after the first phase of the cease-fire deal, set to last 42 days, is unclear, including whether Israel intends to pursue a second phase of the deal and an enduring cease-fire in Gaza, allowing the remaining hostages to return home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019ll be the happiest man alive to see any one of the hostages return, but there\u2019s also immense worry over the second phase,\u201d said Doron Zexer, a prominent activist for the release of an Israeli-American hostage, Edan Alexander.<\/p>\n As the full cabinet met on Friday, at the beginning of the Sabbath, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was facing an internal rebellion<\/a> from far-right partners whom he depends on to hold together his governing coalition.<\/p>\n On Thursday night, one such partner, the hard-line national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, announced he would resign from the coalition if the cabinet approved the cease-fire deal. The finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has also threatened to quit the government if Mr. Netanyahu proceeds from a first phase of the cease-fire to a permanent one.<\/p>\n Their moves would not, on their own, prevent the initial phase of the Gaza deal from moving ahead. But they would create more uncertainty about Israel\u2019s commitment to a cease-fire in the long term, as hard-line members of the government push for Israel\u2019s military to resume the war and seek Hamas\u2019s destruction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Also unclear is a plan for postwar Gaza, despite the optimistic assertions of departing officials in the Biden administration. The U.S. secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, told reporters on Thursday<\/a> that the cease-fire was \u201ca moment of historic possibility for the region,\u201d creating opportunities for lasting peace, Gaza\u2019s reconstruction, \u201ca credible pathway to a Palestinian state\u201d and normalized relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But while President Biden said on Thursday that he had pushed Mr. Netanyahu to accommodate Palestinian concerns, the Israeli prime minister has consistently rebuffed U.S. calls<\/a> to work toward an eventual Palestinian state.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has to find a way to accommodate the legitimate concerns\u201d of Palestinians, Mr. Biden said in an interview with MSNBC<\/a> on Thursday. He called Mr. Netanyahu a friend but added, \u201cWe don\u2019t agree a whole lot lately.\u201d<\/p>\n Even after negotiators announced a cease-fire deal, deadly Israeli airstrikes continued in Gaza. The Israeli military said on Thursday that it had struck about 50 targets across the territory over the previous day, while Gazan officials reported dozens of people killed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe cease-fire feels meaningless,\u201d said Ahmad al-Mashharwi, who was sheltering with more than a dozen relatives in a rented house in Gaza City, in a phone interview on Friday. \u201cArtillery and airstrikes continue around us, especially in northern Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He said that conditions in northern Gaza were dire, with prices soaring and basic goods in short supply.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t afford food or clean water, and my children are going hungry,\u201d Mr. al-Mashharwi said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been stripped of everything \u2014 there\u2019s no safety, no resources, nothing to help us survive.\u201d<\/p>\n