• Qatar, US and Egypt help negotiate four-day lull that may be extended if more prisoners are released
• Two swaps of 50 Israeli, 150 Palestinian prisoners to be held this week
• Israel set to resume hostilities after prisoner exchange is completed
• Unicef chief says Gaza ‘most dangerous place to be a child’

JERUSALEM: After 47 days of continuous bombardment, heavy fighting and a crippling siege, the tormented residents of Gaza will finally be able to breathe a sigh of relief when a truce between the Israeli government and Hamas kicks in this afternoon.

Both sides said on Wednesday they had agreed to a four-day truce, during which Hamas would free at least 50 of the prisoners taken during the October 7 raid, while Israel would release at least 150 Palestinian prisoners and allow more aid into the devastated Palestinian territory.

The prisoners being freed from both sides include women and children, and the process will begin today (Thursday) at 10am local time (around 1pm Pakistan time).

In addition, the prisoner swap deal will be repeated later this month, a Palestinian official told Reuters. This means that Hamas would release around 100 of its prisoners, while Israel would free a total of 300 Palestinian prisoners in the two exchanges.

“The second batch will follow the first batch. They would need four or five days to organise [and] it will involve 50 Israeli (hostages) in return for 150 Palestinian (prisoners),” the official said. He said the prisoners would include elderly, women and children and the conditions will be the same.

This was also confirmed by an Israeli government document, seen by AFP, which named 300 eligible prisoners. For every 10 additional hostages released, there would be an extra day’s “pause” in fighting, the document said.

The deal — negotiated with Qatar, the United States and Egypt — is the first major breakthrough in the bloodiest chapter of Gaza’s history, which has claimed over 14,000 lives and left most of the territory in ruins.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, whose cabinet approved the truce after a marathon overnight session, told his ministers it was a “difficult decision but it’s a right decision”.

The cabinet’s sign-off was one of the last hurdles after what one US official described as five “extremely excruciating” weeks of talks.

Hamas welcomed the “humanitarian truce” and an official told AFP that “the resistance is committed to the truce as long as the occupation honours it”.

Not a lasting ceasefire

Although Qatari mediators held out hope the truce deal could lead to a more durable ceasefire, Israeli officials stressed that they intended to resume their attacks on Gaza as soon as the prisoner releases were complete.

In a statement, the Israeli government pledged to “continue the war in order to return home all of the prisoners, the complete elimination of Hamas and ensure that there will be no new threat to the State of Israel from Gaza”.

Ahead of the crunch meeting which approved the deal, hawkish Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said he had won assurances it would not spell the end of the war.

“Immediately after we have exhausted this phase,” he said, security operations would “continue in full force”.

Strikes continue

But on the eve of the truce, Israel appeared to be pushing on with its offensive in northern Gaza on Wednesday, with witnesses reporting strikes on Kamal Adwan hospital and nearby homes.

More than 50 members of the same family have been killed in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza during Israel’s military campaign there, the Palestinian foreign minister said on Wednesday.

“Only this morning, from the Qadoura family in Jabalia, 52 people have been wiped out completely, killed,” Riyad al-Maliki said on the sidelines of a briefing by Arab and Muslim foreign ministers in London.

“I have the list of the names, 52 of them, they were wiped out completely from grandfather to grandchildren.”

Most dangerous place for children

Meanwhile, the head of Unicef has called the besieged Gaza Strip “the most dangerous place in the world to be a child,” and said that the hard-won truce deal was not enough to save their lives.

Unicef Executive Director Catherine Russell told the UN Security Council that over 5,300 children have reportedly been killed in Gaza since October, which is 40 per cent of all deaths.

“This is unprecedented,” she Russell, who had just returned from a trip to southern Gaza. “I am haunted by what I saw and heard.”

She said that an additional 1,200 children are believed to remain under the rubble of bombed-out buildings or are otherwise unaccounted for.

The Unicef official said that a pause is not enough and called for “an urgent humanitarian ceasefire to immediately put a stop to this carnage.”

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2023