By Maayan Lubell and Nidal al-Mughrabi
JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Gaza ceasefire, set to begin at 0630 GMT on Sunday, will not begin until the Palestinian militant group Hamas provides a list of hostages that they will be released.
Netanyahu’s announcement comes an hour before the deadline for the ceasefire. The hostages were expected to be freed within hours of the ceasefire beginning, paving the way for a possible end to a 15-month war that has upended the Middle East.
“The prime minister instructed the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) that the ceasefire, which is supposed to go into effect at 8:30 a.m., will not begin until Israel has the list of released abductees that Hamas is committed to providing,” his office said. he said on Sunday.
Hamas on Sunday affirmed its commitment to the Gaza ceasefire agreement, saying the delay in revealing the names of hostages to be freed in the first phase was due to “technical reasons on the ground.”
Israeli forces had begun withdrawing from areas in Gaza’s Rafah toward the Philadelphia corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border, pro-Hamas media reported early Sunday.
The Israeli military warned Gaza residents not to approach its troops or move through the Palestinian territory before the ceasefire deadline, adding that when movement is allowed “a statement and instructions on methods will be issued.” of safe transit.
The ceasefire agreement came after months of on-again, off-again negotiations mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States, and came just before the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump on January 20.
The three-stage ceasefire will take effect at 06:30 GMT on Sunday.
Its first stage will last six weeks, during which 33 of the 98 remaining hostages – women, children, men over 50, sick and injured – will be released in exchange for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
They include 737 prisoners, men, women and teenagers, some of whom are members of militant groups convicted of attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, as well as hundreds of Gaza Palestinians detained since the start of the war.
The Red Cross is expected to release three hostages on Sunday afternoon, in exchange for 30 prisoners each.
After Sunday’s release of the hostages, chief U.S. negotiator Brett McGurk said, the deal calls for the release of four more hostages after seven days, followed by the release of three more hostages every seven days thereafter.
During the first phase, the Israeli army will withdraw from some of its positions in Gaza and displaced Palestinians from areas of northern Gaza will be allowed to return.
US President Joe Biden’s team worked closely with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to push through the deal.
As his inauguration approached, Trump reiterated his demand that a deal be reached quickly, repeatedly warning that there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages were not freed.
POST-WAR GAZA?
But what will come next in Gaza remains unclear in the absence of a comprehensive agreement on the post-war future of the enclave, whose reconstruction will require billions of dollars and years of work.
And while the ceasefire’s stated goal is to end the war entirely, it could easily fall apart.
Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for nearly two decades, has survived despite losing its top leaders and thousands of fighters.
Israel has vowed not to allow Hamas to return to power and has cleared large swaths of land inside Gaza, in a move widely seen as a step toward creating a buffer zone that will allow its troops to act freely against threats in the area. enclave.
In Israel, the return of the hostages may ease some of the public anger against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government over the Oct. 7 security failure that led to the deadliest day in the country’s history.
But hardline members of his government have already threatened to resign if the war against Hamas is not resumed, leaving him squeezed between Washington’s desire to see the war end and his far-right political allies at home.
And if the war resumes, dozens of hostages could be left behind in Gaza.
MIDDLE EAST SHOCK WAVES
Outside Gaza, the war sent shockwaves across the region, triggering a war with the Tehran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah movement and bringing Israel into direct conflict with its archenemy Iran for the first time.
More than a year later, the Middle East has been transformed. Iran, which spent billions building a network of militant groups around Israel, has seen its “Axis of Resistance” shattered and was unable to inflict more than minimal damage on Israel in two major missile attacks.
Hezbollah, whose huge missile arsenal was once seen as the biggest threat to Israel, has been humiliated, with its top leaders killed and most of its missiles and military infrastructure destroyed.
Subsequently, the decades-long Assad regime in Syria was overthrown, eliminating another important Iranian ally and leaving Israel’s military effectively unchallenged in the region.
But on the diplomatic front, Israel has faced outrage and isolation over the death and devastation in Gaza.
Netanyahu faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court on war crimes allegations and separate genocide charges at the International Court of Justice.
Israel has reacted furiously to both cases, rejecting the charges as politically motivated and accusing South Africa, which brought the original case to the ICJ, as well as countries that have joined it, of anti-Semitism.
The war was triggered by the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli counts. Since then, more than 400 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat in Gaza.
Israel’s 15-month campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza Health Ministry figures, which do not distinguish between combatants and civilians, and left the narrow coastal enclave a wasteland of rubble.
Health officials say most of the dead are civilians. Israel says more than a third are combatants.